Months after watching It's The Rage, I'm still not sure what the director and writer were trying to accomplish. Were they trying to tell me that guns are bad things and that they should all be smelted down into raw steel/plastic/whatever? Well, being that I long for the good old swords-and-bows of yesteryear, I guess I can live with an anti-gun message. However, having almost killed people with just my bare hands, I can tell you with authority that without a person holding it with the nerve and idea to do the killing, a gun cannot do a thing. It is only as effective as the person using it.

Nonetheless, the statement that guns are a bad thing in the hands of the wrong people is still a valid one. However, this film presents that statement in the worst possible fashion: by presenting every gun owner in the film as a lunatic, the film falls into stereotyping. In the minds of Reddin and Stern, a sane, rational gun owner does not exist. Every gun owner to them is a mental illness stereotype, a homosexual stereotype, or both. The few characters that don't conform to this dull pattern are police officers who embody an uneasy sense of corruption. Apparently, the idea of a public figure who owns a gun in order to defend himself from lunatics who disagree with his message has never occurred to these people.

Even the dedication of the film to a friend who was killed in gun play does not help the situation. It makes the entire story come off as the confused whinings of a child. Yes, it's tragic that someone was shot for no good reason. Hell, dozens of people were shot for no good reason in a place called Port Arthur, just a couple of thousand kilometers from where I live. But then again, if just one or two of the people who were killed in Port Arthur had a firearm themselves and knew how to use it properly, the death toll from that incident would have been drastically reduced. This is the one inescapable fact that extremist films such as this would never willingly admit to.

The film doesn't exactly work as a comedy either, thanks in part to the aforementioned stereotyping. I suspect that Gary Sinise's character was meant to be a joke, but since I have heard it a million times already from people who are far too stupid to be making films, it fell flat. Even millionaires with fragmented personalities are aware they have to take care of business. The same goes for the characters played by David Schwimmer and Giovanni Ribisi.

The only actor who salvages their credibility from this mess is the ever-likable Anna Paquin, and it is not surprising that her character offers the biggest hint at a second dimension. Perhaps if It's The Rage had been entirely about her, or developed as a satire narrated from her viewpoint, the negatives of this film might have been easier to swallow. Then again, considering that she winds up behaving in a stereotypical fashion herself, maybe not. You know a film is in trouble when one of the few Oscar winners of recent years who has not irrevocably damaged the credibility of the awards cannot save it.

I'm not a big fan of guns, but I am less of a fan when it comes to stereotyping and one-sidedness. These are two elements that this film has in spades, and it is with a heavy heart that I can't even recommend it as a comedy. Worth looking at to see Anna Paquin in yet another role that is truly beneath her. All The Rage gets a two out of ten for me (which is even more damning than a one, since I often give ones to films that are so bad they're funny).


Overall: Slow, but saved by a well paced ending

Outstanding Performances: Joan Allen (as all ways), David Schwimmer & Anna Paquin

Final: Wait till video


According to the government, in the United States there are about 50 million gun owners.

You would think with statistics like that, the Director could have found believable characters and storylines, regardless of which side of the debate he wanted to portray.


One of the worst films I've ever seen. Great cast, including, Gary Sinise, Anna Paquin, Giovanni Ribisi, Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels, is totally wasted. However, a great role was also wasted, David Schwimmer could have done so much with his role as a gun crazed homosexual, but instead he was boring and useless. Why does this guy act out of "Friends", or at all?

I don't want to talk about this movie to much, it's just wasting my time. This film totally sucked and DO NOT SEE IT!


Even if I agreed with All the Rage's blatant anti-gun agenda (I don't) I would still have to say that it sucks. Its kind of sad too, because I really like most everyone in this movie, but as we all know the best actors in the world cannot save a lame script and ham handed direction. It baffles me how they talked such a talented group of actors into working on this piece of rubbish. Must have been a heck of a sales pitch. Allegedly a comedy, I didn't laugh once while watching All the Rage. The attempts at humour were not only severely unfunny, they were downright embarrassing. To add insult to injury the characters in this film were completely unrealistic and not at all sympathetic. I didn't care about these people at all.

I'm a huge fan of black comedies and given the cast I had high hopes for All the Rage. Unfortunately I was very disappointed. I shouldn't have been surprised, being a direct to video release. It wasn't that I was expecting another Pulp Fiction or Trainspotting, I was just hoping for something entertaining, this film was a complete waste of time.

Getting back to the film's "agenda", I've found that most anti-gun people really know very little about guns and gun owners. All they really know is the heavily distorted misinformation spoon fed them by anti-gun lobbies. What they don't tell you is that 99.99% of gun owners are sane, responsible, safety conscious, good and perfectly normal people. They also don't tell you that in every single state that has passed laws allowing concealed carry (there are 27 at last count), violent crime has dropped by as much as 50%. Whether you, the reader, agree with me or not, just think about it logically. If guns are so evil and the cause of crime and chaos, how is it that over the last 30 years gun ownership has steadily increased, and gun related crime has steadily decreased? If you don't believe look it up yourself at the Department of Justice (DOJ), which is neither pro or anti-gun and therefore impartial.

Again my feelings about the "anti-gun" agenda aside, agenda or no, this is still a very bad movie. Don't waste your time.


This movie should be shown at film school as a guideline for how *not* to make a movie. This is a film with an ensemble cast, and it seemed dead-set on making every character interact with each other at some point, whether it made any sense or not. What resulted was a plethora of scenes which had no relevance or effect on the story. The characters were poorly-written and under-developed. The long takes were impressive, but none of that matters if the content is bad. The only redeeming quality in this movie was Gary Sinise's performance. The other actors were either mis-cast (we all know David Schwimmer can only play one part) or just gave cliched, bad performances. This movie had no surprises, tons of plot-holes, sub-plots that went nowhere, confusing scenes that added nothing, and was for lack of a better word, just flat-out stupid.


It's amazing to me how such a talented cast could be involved with such a ridiculously bad movie. Yes, guns are bad, but this film almost made me want to go out and buy one just to fire it at my television. The only thing this film made me think seriously about was whether or not I could go back to the video store and return it in time to get something else for free.


This movie isn't about how guns are out of control in America. It's about a bunch of otherwise talented actors making fools of themselves. Like the NRA says, guns don't kill people, people kill people. The people in this movie are too stupid to know how to operate a gun. The hype about guns was obviously just added on to try to impart some import to an otherwise painfully awful movie. It is jaw-droppingly awful. It's also not a comedy. There is nothing even remotely funny about it. Not a single scene, not a single line is funny. Nor is it satire. The talent gathered for this mess should be ashamed of themselves.


One of the worst films I've ever seen at the Toronto Film Festival; this was compared by the program book to Robert Altman's The Player, but plays instead like a rejected TV pilot for a third-rate network. It's a film of big ideas, in particular about the folly of America's obsession with guns; presumably it's this liberal agenda that enticed an astonishing cast, each member of which is as bad here as they've ever been before (Jeff Daniels plays an arrogant businessman who gets away with murder; Joan Allen is the wife who leaves him to work for loopy billionaire Gary Sinise; they and four or five others get intertwined in a web of violence). The film is painfully stilted, relying on a monstrous series of coincidences and improbabilities, with no sense of character or naturalism, evidencing no research into how things actually work or look or feel. Sometimes it seems intended as a black comedy, but it's not remotely funny; it's gimmicky instead of parodic, banal instead of ironic. The film says nothing useful about guns, but almost everything about pretentious amateurism.


OK, here's how the movie works.

There is the barest germ of an interesting detective story plot here to drive the movie: thieves use a kidnapping at the San Francisco Airport to serve as a distraction from their attempts to smuggle stuff into Mexico. Watching Pernell Roberts (the airport administrator), Clu Gulager (the airport security chief) and Van Johnson (a newspaper columnist who happens to be in the airport at the time) try to assemble the clues, figure out what's happening, and scramble to thwart the bad guys before the bad guys can 'get away with it'...is mildly diverting in the same way that the 'caper plots' from "Hawaii Five-O" used to be.

But because this series pilot is supposed to be setting us up for a series similar to "The Grand Hotel", and not just a detective series, the filmmakers have to flesh things out with human interest and character tags. So we get Pernell's battle with the senators over modernizing the airport. We get a divorce subplot between Van Johnson and his wife which in turn generates an ABC after school special segment with son Davey, who is so upset by his parents' impending separation that he...um....gets into an unguarded plane on the tarmac and takes off. (What?????). And we also get a public service announcement subplot in which it is revealed that businessmen tend to be stuffy and prejudiced, while guitar playing hippies and airport security chiefs can relate to each other. Or something.

The results are, well....watchable. All the actors here are competent in a made-for-TV way. Pernell Roberts' character is incredibly smug and self-important, but I think that was a deliberate choice by the director and the screenwriter - don't forget that "McGarrett", the hero of "Hawaii Five-O" (a very successful hit in the same era) was also arrogant and hard-nosed, and I think the writers were hoping to mimic that series success with a similar protagonist.

But it's obvious that the makers of "SFI" spectacularly misjudged the drawing power of the airport setting in generating viewer interest, especially when they made the airport and everything in it muddy orange and brown. And the screenplay is pretty much stuck in 2nd gear for the duration of the film. You've never seen so much screen time devoted to actors giving each other meaningful glances in your life.

Anyway, no one bought it, and the pilot sunk without a trace, to be revived by "Mystery Science Theater" over 30 years later. The MST coverage is mildly amusing (as always) and helps you pass the time until the pilot winds to its inevitable close and everyone lives happily ever after.


If there's anything on TV that could make "Cop Rock" look like "Masterpiece Theatre", San Francisco International is it. Pernell Roberts, long before he discovered his TV niche as Trapper John, stars here as an arrogant, self-aggrandizing, pompous head of security for the San Francisco airport. >

In order for you to get an idea of his modus operandi as head of security, he stages a crisis aboard an airplane full of congressmen in order to demonstrate his need for more security. Thankfully, the scene of these VIPs cleaning up after discovering the hoax was left on the editing room floor. > David Hartman also stars as a clueless pilot whose wife is kidnapped. The kidnapping takes place so that Hartman's character can stall his next flight long enough so that the bad guys can steal some gold, money, potatoes...who really cares?

This movie throws in every bad TV movie element of the time, missing only the opportunity to cast either Bert Convy or one of the Landers sisters. Roberts' character is neither likable nor identifiable in this film.

Sterno says keep this film on your personal radar, only to make sure that you've shot it down and to watch it go down in flames.


San Francisco International (SFI for the rest of this) follows what I've started calling a Love Boat style of plot development. You know  a movie or television show with an ensemble cast where each character has their own storyline that may or may not have anything to do with the other characters. One plot line is deadly serious, another is romantically charged, the next is played for laughs, and on and on it goes. I don't know where the Love Boat plot style first originated, but SFI follows this to a "T". The story lines in SFI include: a boy, upset over his parents divorce, climbs into an abandoned plane and takes off; a band of crooks robs a shipment of cash going through the airport; seeking additional funding for the airport, airport head honcho Jim Conrad (Pernell Roberts) fakes an emergency landing with a planeload of government officials; a businessman and a hippie get into an altercation; etc. But being a 70s made-for-TV movie, you know everything is going to work out fine in the end  not that you really care or anything.

There are several reasons why SFI never made it to our television sets as a regular series. And chief among them as far as I'm concerned is Pernell Roberts. Being self-assured is one thing, but Roberts' character comes off as one of the smuggest in history. He's too unlikable to care about any of his problems and whether they get resolved or not. You can't build a series around a horses rear-end like Jim Conrad and expect anyone to watch.

As with a lot of the "bad" movies I've been watching lately, I saw SFI courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And as far as a MST3K episode goes, SFI is a keeper. A laugh at every turn. If you're a fan of the show, do yourself a favor and seek it out. This one gets a 4/5 on my MST3K rating scale.


Boring. Befuddled. Blah. These are all adjectives that could be used to to describe this lame 70's pilot for a really crappy t.v. show. Like Stranded in Space, this loser show never got off the ground. Can't imagine why. Although, to give it credit where credit is due, Stranded in Space was actually better and more coherent than this dreadful yellowish mess.

There's a lot of 70's b grade actors in this one, from Pernell Roberts to Tab Hunter to Clu Gullagher. Pernell plays the head of security at San Francisco International, and a more annoying, uptight, moralizing, ego-ridden jerk I haven't seen in a long time. That first scene, in which he scares the crap out of an entire plane load of people just so that he can teach a 'lesson' to some Congressman just leaves you shaking your head in disgust. Where's Homeland Security when you need them?

The 'plot', such as it is, is totally incomprehensible. There are so many trailing off plot lines that you could have woven a sweater from them. There was something about some boxes, the wife of a pilot being kidnapped, a weenie kid somehow stealing a plane, a secretary being held hostage, and a weird little scene with Pete from MacGyver getting into a fist fight with a guitar toting hippie kid. None of it makes much sense, and the only closure is the kid being brought down safely(too bad, he was a really irritating kid). The film is so yellow that it looks like the 'before' pics of coffee stained dentures. Everybody is drably uninteresting, and the whole thing could be used as a sleep inducer. A total waste of time, even as an MST3K episode.


Frankly I'm surprised after watching this thing that we've made it this far. This movie is the worst of the worst, right down there with Manos, Boggy Creek, and Laserblast. It is absolute crap, from beginning to end. Some retarded kid steals an airplane, and of course his parents are getting divorced. There's some plane with 3 million dollars and some idiots have some really cheesed up plan to steal it.

I will never understand for the rest of my life how the heck this ever was green lighted to put on celluloid. From beginning to end, this movie will absolutely disappoint. Only watchable as MST, and they have a lot of fun with it. EEERRRKKEEELLLLL!

1/10


I love movies...a lot. I've seen thousands of movies (that's not an exaggeration) and I've tried to see all the "important" films critics rave about. Some of them HAVE been great but others like "Wild Strawberries" and this are just meandering, depressing and ultimately pointless. Seriously--what's so great about this? We see a man becoming completely destroyed and humiliated in front of his son. And the point is...? It was just depressing and also boring. The acting was nothing special (it's obvious they used amateurs) and the story is just so frustrating. What happened to the bicycle? Who has it? Why are we not told? Yes, I know life is like that but I don't need a movie to tell me that! Sometimes you want a movie to forgot about your troubles and worries. This one makes things worse. The ultimate message here seems to be that life is terrible and you can't do a thing about it. Does THAT make it a classic? I don't think so.

It's another one of those films that was wildly overpraised and, I suppose, at the time of its release it was revolutionary. However not all movies become classics forever and ever. Time has not been kind to this one. I think critics and people keep praising it for one of two reasons: they don't understand it and think they're missing something (but don't want to admit it) OR don't want to rock the boat of critical opinions from the 1940s. Overrated, depressing and ultimately pointless.


Why would you bother getting so many great cameos and waste them on a made-up character? The identical movie, with the identical actors, without the fake character would have been educational and entertaining.

Who was the target audience here? Some of the references were so vague as to not even be funny by the 10 people who got the joke. (Example: The parody of Fredric Wertham's "Seduction of the Innocent" - what point did this serve???) Poorly done, poorly conceived, and another step down the road to obscurity for Mark Hamill.

If you like comic books, rent something else... especially if you haven't seen "An Evening With Kevin Smith" - you'll understand the giant spider joke better if you do.


COMIC BOOK: THE MOVIE could have been so much more. It could have uncovered why people love comics to the point of worship, or why so many individuals feel the need to "collect." It could have pushed us into the deep end of the nostalgia pool. It could have been both a loving and cynical look at the world of comic books fandom. And most important of all, it could have been extremely funny.

Well, it at least tried to be funny. But it fails miserably in that regard.

Let me say, first and foremost, that this is no WAITING FOR GUFFMAN. It tries to be a mockumentary, but it looks like it's filmed on video and appearslike anyone could have done it. (Not that I'm knocking that completely; I like edgy films, I like films that could have been filmed in somebody's basement; my problem here is, the film is otherwise extremely slick. The poor filming quality with the slick editing just doesn't cut it for me. Though, I should state that the fake covers of the COMMANDER COURAGE comic book were extraordinarily well crafted.)

I also have a problem with much of the acting. In the Christopher Guest mocks, you always get an idea that these are human beings. Crazed. Outlandish. Sometimes off the wall (i.e. Fred Willard in A MIGHTY WIND). But human nonetheless. Not so here. The people portraying the studio execs are very poor; they are like second-rate community theatre players in search of a laugh line. Some of their mannerisms are way over the top for the stage, let alone a "movie."

I thought Mark Hamill had moments that worked as an actor; his passion and mania for COMMANDER COURAGE (his fave superhero) are sometimes touching. His rants about his love of this superhero are at times amusing. But again, where is the human being? I saw a stock character--the comic book fanatic--as opposed to a PERSON who happens to be a comic book fanatic. I enjoy Hamill in other films; but I guess when directing himself, he's not able to guide himself into a plausible character.

My favorite actor was the gregarious cameraman, mainly because his impersonations were spot on and he alone provided some of the movie's only laughs. Kevin Smith is fine, as are the other celebrity guests. But they aren't in the film long enough to sustain it. It's Hamill's baby, and he's not charismatic enough or strong enough in this particular performance to carry it. At times you think you might catch a glimpse of a comic-loving Corky St. Clair, or someone like Corky, but that never occurs. Hamill's Donald Swann is annoying to many of the people onscreen, and soon enough, he becomes annoying to the audience watching the film. Not a good sign.

The film also felt especially long. SHOAH lasts many hours and I was never bored; this film is only 107 minutes and it felt like an eternity.

I guess if you are a comic book fan, you will find some enjoyment in the behind the scenes look at the San Diego Comic Con, where much of this takes place. But if you're not, good luck. Using the comic book grading scale for condition, I give COMIC BOOK: THE MOVIE a very generous rating of FAIR.


This movie was of poor quality, film wise, but that didn't bug me.

So what if it looked like Mark Hamill was shooting with his handicam? Fact is, the plot was so poorly excuted, and the movie so boring, I fell asleep for 30 mins during this... and missed nothing!!!! The cameos were neat, and fun, but not worth the rental price. Very few good one liners. And some pretty hot chicks.


Mark Hammill plays Donald Swan, an elderly comic nerd who attends a con cause he loves Commender Courage (a made-up creation for the movie). If Hamill just made a straight up documentary, this film wouldn't be half as bad. As it is, the jokes are stale, and the guest stars including Kevin Smith, Bruce Campbell, Ray Harryhausen, Stan Lee, and others are pretty much wasted. Which is a damn shame, well not so much in the case of Kevin Smith as he's pretty much a one-trick pony (as evidence of him trying to get away for said one-trick and making a movie that bombed horribly). The extra "behind the voices" featurette on the second disc is better because it's REAL (why the hell did Miramax see fit to give this sad movie a deluxe set boggles the mind, by the way). Mr. Hammill says this move is a 'love letter to the fans', proving the saying "you only hurt the one's you love" all the more apt.

My Grade: D+

DVD Extras: Disc 1) List of Cameos; Art gallery; 13 deleted scenes; Cast and crew bios; Trailers for "Spy Kids 3D" and "My Boss's Daughter" Disc 2) "Behind the Voices" 51-minute panel; Faux Extended Interviews with Kevin Smith, Stan Lee, Bruce Campbell, Hugh Hefner, Mark Evanier; Scott Shaw, Billy Mumy, Peter David, and Paul Dini; and some other stuff


I heard a promo for this movie on the howard stern show and figured I'd give it a try. I hated it. Watching movies like this make me value the Guest movies (Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind, and Best and Show) and the grand master of them all, Spinal Tap, but this movie is a poser, and unwatchable. Not one character is believable. In these documentary style films the characters have to be believable, and none of the characters are close to feeling real. If you want to watch a movie you may not have seen in this genre but want to see a funny one with good characters, check out Fubar. That's a good one, funny, memorable, and believable.


I was horribly offended by this film. Andy's friends act like she's selling her soul to work at Runway, as if it's not just an occupational hazard to submit to cruel bosses here and there. The whole premise of her accepting the job in the first place is that she can then move on to enviable roles in other magazines. What the hell is wrong with that?!!! How is spending a year working your ass off some kind of spiritual sin? It doesn't make any sense.

And she gets accused of doing to Emily what Priestly does to Tucci's character, but that's so clearly not the case. Why should Andy or anyone else sacrifice their promotion for co-workers that never made any effort to be nice to them in the first place? Ideally promotions are awarded meritocratically and why shouldn't we believe that Andy is just as qualified and deserving of her new responsibilities as Emily? Because she wasn't there as long? That's retarded people! The real world doesn't operate this way. When was the last time you gave up a promotion for some co-worker who was an asshole to you and didn't necessarily do her job as well? The basic message of this movie is that you shouldn't be ambitious, because if you are you will be punished by your friends and family--is this women really need to hear more of this bullshit? You're suppose to presume that had Andy completed her year there she would have set herself permanently on the path to crazed careerism which led to Miranda's second divorce. Oh, everyone at Runway is so unhappy. It's not worth it to be at the top of your field in fashion. I mean, it's absurd.

Oh, and sous chef boyfriend at one point declares how they should stop pretending that he and Andy have anything in common anymore. Oh my God. You obviously had precious little in common in the first place if girlfriend + an unusually stressful year of work is enough to eviscerate all that you used to have in common. In the real world, partners go through periods when they become absorbed by intense spells and relationships survive, because in good relationships partners support the long-term goals of their sig others. How do you think doctors complete their residencies with their relationships in tact? The gratuitous fashion montages were fantastic, but Anne Hathaway is a less than formidable talent that works best when she's posing all Brunette Barbie style. I actually walked out after Andy threw her cell phone in the fountain. I figured there wouldn't be anymore eye candy post-Runway and I'd have to sit through some predictable reconciliation scene where she's apologizing to her boyfriend for having had the misguided notion that the people who loved her might enjoy watching her succeed.

And it's just a stale, middle-of-the-road mainstream feature in a multitude of other dimensions. Save for Meryl Streep's white hot performance this movie sucks. View this movie only to witness a blatant example of how society wants to sabotage women's economic success.


About ten minutes into this movie, I was hoping against hope that one of them would strike up a conversation with... maybe a sanitation worker, or a street vendor, or bag lady, anybody with some depth of character -- somebody interesting, real, human!!! What a waste of film!

The only character in the movie with any semblance to a real human being was Andy's father -- at least he expressed some genuine love and interest for somebody!? All others were unbelievably shallow, fake, vain, cruel, indifferent, snarkey, smarmy, etc., etc., etc., ... They tried all too hard to impress everybody, and wound up impressing nobody. Real Hollywood types!

Why the moguls in Hollywood would think the average movie patron would be interested in such despicable people is a total mystery? Why would they think the main character would be even remotely sympathetic to us all when she displayed her disdain for the "evil, vain" fashion publishing industry buy quitting to get away from all the phonies, only to take a job with a phony left-wing fraudulent "newspaper" where she supposed she could "do real work?" and shack up with a phony, shallow "sous chef" boyfriend. Don't any of these people have real lives, children, families? In a way, it's kind of sad.

What a waste of time. Uhggggg!


Somewhere in the world, women scientists are trying to determine the nature of dark matter, are measuring and composing computer models regarding gamma ray bursters. They are crouched in the bush in Africa, observing bonobo behavior, and they are hunched over telescopes in laboratories, seeking a cure for cancer and doing micropaleontology. Women are building office buildings, designing bridges, doing climate research in Antarctica, and trying to design disease-resistant rice strains to help stave off famine.

But not in this movie. In this movie, women are obsessed with their exteriors in the mirror and with a bunch of goofy-looking clothes which, when they see themselves photographed in them fifteen years down the road will look as ludicrous as disco fashions look to us. They are permanently damaging their leg tendons from wearing high heels. They celebrate anorexia. This is a depiction of a slice of the real world, of course. While it is possible that most of these women are not smart enough to do science or engineering or real work, surely some of them are and it's a sad waste of human resources that they spend their time in this oppressive and oppressing career.

To a large degree, this movie celebrates this waste. Although our protagonist, at the end, leaves the fashion industry to do real journalism, the movie-makers obviously adore the fashion industry and do not lampoon it at all. They take it as serious as the ludicrous, misogynist 'devils' in the industry take it. For me, watching this is like watching a movie about faith healing that takes it deadly seriously. What a bunch of idiots thinks about some delusion is interesting only if the filmmakers and audience are also aware that it is delusion.

Certainly the film is workmanlike in technique. There are no shadows from boom mikes or inaudible dialog. And yes, Meryl Streep is fine as the understated boss from hell. But if this is the best Hollywood can do offering "strong female roles," that's just tragic for us all.


Meryl Streep is always an amazing actress but there is no depth to her character nor to anyone else's. She plays a sadistic, bitchy boss who makes impossible demands to a young woman who gets the impossible done out of nothing more than fear. If there is determination to make it (or as Streep's character infers because they are so alike) it is not apparent. There is almost no plot. Even the NY Times had an article stating that no one in the real fashion world would dress like these people. No plot, no character development and no real fashion. It was a big disappointment. It was unclear if Streep's superficial relationship with her children was because she had no life outside of the magazine or because she was indeed that superficial.


This movie generated so much buzz when it came out that I initially resisted seeing it. Now that I finally did, I can't help but wonder what all the hype was about.

Starring Meryl Streep opposite Anne Hathaway, "The Devil Wears Prada" is loosely based on the book by the same name, and was billed as a funny-but-edgy insider's look into the cutthroat world of fashion. Instead, it is a fairly pedestrian teen movie, built along the lines of "She's All That" or its million predecessors, where the plain Jane girl gets a makeover and all her dreams come true. Or something.

Because the message itself gets a little lost here. Ostensibly, this movie is supposed to tell us that the world of fashion is evil, superficial, full of back-stabbers and snotty "clackers", and utterly devoid of any true meaning or purpose. But simultaneously, it tries to elevate fashion to a worthy pursuit on the same level as, say, curing AIDS or fighting world poverty. In trying to at once pay homage to and dissect the fashion world, the movie succeeds at neither.

Much has been said about the acting, namely, Meryl Streep's portrayal of her character. And while I agree that her deliberately understated performance elevated this movie to something beyond "disaster", I'd hardly give her lavish praise. Simply put, she's not nearly "devilish" enough. She's tough and, at first, snarky, but we never truly believe that she's evil. Driven, yes. Willing to step over people to get what she wants, sure. But evil?

In fact, nobody is quite mean enough here. Emily Blunt's character is snooty but ultimately likable, and Stanley Tucci plays the kind of "gal pal" every girl wishes she had. For a supposedly cutthroat world, people are falling all over themselves to help each other out. So much for the Devil.

And Anne Hathaway is charming and all, but she is just horribly miscast as the ugly duckling. She's a gorgeous girl who looks like a fashion model wearing the designer clothing she struts around in most of the movie, but she looked stunning even before that "makeover" and the suggested message was that the world of fashion has ridiculous, unrealistic standards.

That said, the movie never really passes enough judgment on these standards. When her success at work leads her to drive away those closest to her, the movie portrays her in a sympathetic light, and her boyfriend and her friends are portrayed as simply jealous, as opposed to as real people who love her for who she is and not for what she wears. When Hathaway's character proudly boasts that she's dropped from a size 6 to a size 4, it's done in such a way to make viewers believe that this is actually a good thing! Far from inspiring people to do the right thing, I fear all this movie will inspire is an epidemic of anorexia among young girls.

In the world of The Devil Wears Prada, there are no consequences, no shame, and no sore feet from running around town all day wearing ridiculous shoes. The plot is utterly ridiculous, including such impossible situations as Hathaway's character obtaining the (not yet written) manuscript to the seventh Harry Potter book. Can we at least stick to something with some semblance of reality here, people?

Salma Hayek's adaptation of "Betty La Fea" as "Ugly Betty", starring America Ferrera, takes the same concept and does it quite a bit better, to tell the truth. I'd give this a skip and try watching the TV series instead; whatever its faults, at least it has a bit more heart than this mess.


Sorry, but this movie is terrible. It insults your intelligence at every turn, lacks any real bite, and, I assure you, flash clothes aside, this movie will ruin your evening. The production is slick, the editing pointlessly rapid, but where it really lets itself down is the writing and plotting. Was this movie REALLY based on a book? Where's the story? The New York 'fashion scene' is so toadily portrayed and offers so little insight, I wondered just who it was that the film-makers were trying not to offend. But it's when the plot creaks and flops into Paris, in what passes for a 3rd act attending - ahem - "Fashion Week" that this movie just falls apart.

Why does aspiring 'writer' Andy, with her cool Bo-Ho credentials, stick around in the world of 'Runway'? Okay, so she landed the job that 'a million girls would kill for', but the inevitable high moral cost for someone as principled as Andy is never satisfactorily explored. She's blatantly seduced by it, but we never get to understand any of the tension her character feels, or why she's the one we're meant to root for. Okay, it's a comedy, but does Andy have to be such a vacuum? Her boyfriend seems to be there to continually remind us what we should be thinking.

Its trite superficial appeal, and relentlessly toothsome cast has garnered it some wincingly favourable reviews, but great title and the casting against type of Meryl Streep aside, this undercooked movie deserves to be quietly forgotten.


If I hadn't been with a friend, trapped in the middle of a row in the theater where I saw this movie, I would have left within the first five minutes. As a New Yorker working in the media industry, I was insulted and disgusted. I've worked with a lot of writers, editors, and publishers, some of which were mentioned in this movie, and they are nothing like the ones portrayed here.

Sure, the cast is great and acting excellent, but the premise, story, and plot is a big fat "0." The formulaic writing kept the shallow characters going around in predictable circles. How interesting and exciting for them.

I regret that I wasted $10.50 and two hours (plus thirty minutes of ads and previews) on this movie.


If you like watching a beautiful woman wearing beautiful clothes, see this movie. If you like acting, see another Meryl Streep or Stanley Tucci film, preferably one that is well enough written to let the actors do their jobs. The attempt to develop a "Friends"-like energy among Andy's young friends stalled totally, and their characters never passed the first-draft/first-reading level of development--a tragic waste of the talents of an actress like Tracie Thoms. The secondary love interest (Simon Baker) didn't make us feel she should be attracted to him, while the boyfriend (Adrian Grenier) made us wonder why she took up with him in the first place. Meanwhile, we only get a vague impression of the tension between Andy's growing respect and even sympathy for her boss and her horror at the costs of following Miranda's footsteps. Streep and Tucci deliver in spades, of course, but the only bright light among the younger actors was Emily Blunt, who plays her role as the suffering-servant senior assistant with a nice comic touch.


What makes DWP work as a bland, comfort film is what makes it not work as anything close to a good movie: namely, the paint-by-numbers script. Everything is rote, from the obligatory crew of friends (Black, gay, boyfriend) to the really awful story transitions that actually come from nowhere; you're just expecting them because that's how these tales go, and not because the script properly sets them up. That is, based on friend and boyfriend reactions, Hathaway has become a work-obsessed, different person. It's supposedly what's driving the story, this alteration of her nature. But we don't get this. Yeah, she looks good and performs an impossible job at ridiculous hours, but she remains her sweet self. Yet, to hammer home this drastic 'character change', the lame device of having her repeat that she 'had no choice' is employed. A lot. The contrivance is embarrassing and pointless because she has not changed as a character. Oh, well. La Streep is La Streep. Always amazing (except for that mess, 'Mamma Mia!', which God Himself couldn't save). PS More points off for the two truly absurd jobs Hathaway is supposed to perform (hurricane flight and Potter books). It would've been far more real had the challenges been more earthbound.


I'm going to quickly cite some of my qualifications for rating this film because it's relevant to what I have to say: I'm a HUGE Christie fan -- I've read every book/play (some 2 or 3 times) that she wrote (over 80 in all), her Mary Westmacott pseudonym stuff, her tome of an autobiography (not a very good or honest work, BTW!), and all the films and TV productions of Christie mysteries which are available to date.

Now, I will begin by noting that, for me, there are essentially 3 facets to evaluating a "Christie film" -- 1. Was it a good book to begin with? -- some are excellent, some are pretty lame, 2. How closely did the screenwriter adhere to the original work?, and, 3. Did the acting come off as "genuine" or was it hokey? (Christie stories, in particular, always manifest the dreaded potential to come off badly in the hands of an unskilled director).

With that, here's my evaluative summary of "The Mirror Crack'd".

"The Mirror Crack'd," is a pretty good Christie book -- and in this film, we are presented with an overage of big names.... and I mean BIG! Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Edward Fox, the latter giving a VERY fine performance, maybe even "saving" the film for me in the second half.

The story: A frumpy local woman is murdered (poisoned) as she attends a high-end theatrical party with hundreds present... but was she the intended victim? This time, Miss Marple (Christie's top female snooper), of course, reveals all at the conclusion.

I must sadly report that Angela Lansbury played Miss Marple, deplorably, and it's equally sad that the screenwriters departed significantly from Chistie's rendering of the favorite lady amateur detective's profile. Lansbury comes off as very assertive, not humble at all, and even puffs away at a non-filtered coffin nail near the end of the flick, an act that would have appalled Christie's Miss Marple.

I'm a huge Elizabeth Taylor fan and she conveyed her character quite well, as expected -- unfortunately, this film was shot in 1980 and Liz was a lumbering side of Hereford beef, sporting 2 1/2 chins -- I was much saddened by this has-been appearance. Hudson, who played her husband, was similarly worn-looking with very bad make-up. Throughout the movie, he looked as if he'd been on a week-long bender. At one point, in a sort of love scene, he's lying on the bed, face up, and Taylor launches herself on to him -- you could almost hear the air hiss out of poor guy and old Rock additionally didn't seem to know what to do with his arms and hands as they didn't encircle her all that effectively. Then, the camera angle switches to Taylor's face, scrunched up on Hudson's shoulder, and it takes on a gargoyle-ish essence -- the editors should have caught this but, like the rest of the movie, you get the idea that this one was all about "yielding product," and nothing about creating art.

The entire film is like this -- a "has-been actors' struggle" I would call it. Edward Fox plays the Scotland Yard Inspector, (and loyal nephew to Lansbury/Marple), and again, he saves the film from being a complete fizzle. Poor Tony Curtis looked as if he'd been run through a tree shredder, with very bad, scruffy-looking, (and very little), hair. Christie fans will like this film okay but I can't recommend it to anyone else. Positive aspects include the letterbox format and very nice cinematography. To conclude this one, I give it a 4 on the low end.


Like many screen adaptations of Christie novels, THE MIRROR CRACK'D features an all-star cast--and in this case the casting would seem inspired: Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple, Rock Hudson as a film producer, Elizabeth Taylor as his movie-star wife, Kim Novack as a rival screen queen, and Tony Curtis as Novak's lover and the producer of the film they are all making. But director Guy Hamilton is more interested in having his cast offer star turns than in actually serving the story, and the result is a strangely uneven, extremely plodding film that only comes to life when Taylor and Novak square off in the series of hilariously written and performed cat-fights that run throughout the movie.

Part of the problem lies in the source material. THE MIRROR CRACK'D is one of Christie's lesser novels, written in a very sparse style and lacking Christie's usual knock-out solution in its story of a fan who drops dead of poisoning at a film star's reception. In order to flesh out the tale, the script piles extraneous scene upon extraneous scene--with the Taylor-Novak scenes a case in point: enjoyable as they are, they actually have little to do with the story and so tend to slow the film down. To make matters worse, the performances are extremely casual at best. Taylor and Novak are extremely enjoyable in their scenes together--but elsewhere they are merely adequate. Hudson and Curtis are flat. And Angela Lansbury, a normally brilliant actress, has one of her rare failures with the role of Jane Marple.

At most, this film is for viewers who want to be in on the last major cinematic gasps of Taylor, Novak, Hudson, and Curtis--and those who derive a certain joy from evaluating the level of decay seen here in the aging cast. Regretfully, this is particularly true of Taylor, who is... shall we say... extremely ample. And most will enjoy seeing Taylor and Novak flog each other with nasty one-liners delivered with considerable flair. But cat-fight scenes aside, THE MIRROR CRACK'D is just one very mild meow.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer


The good news: So much talent: 1. An Agatha Christie novel as basis for the plot. 2. Angela Lansbury playing Miss Marple 3. Elizabeth Taylor, a really beautiful woman over her prime, playing a really beautiful woman over her prime 4. Edward Fox a very good actor. 5. Kim Novak, another beautiful woman. 6. Rock Hudson was always good to look at. 7. Even Tony Curtis thrown in for good measure. Talk about an all star cast. The bad news: I'm not completely sure if it is the screenplay, the directing, or the acting but this movie was horrible. How in the world could so many good actors do such a terrible job. The two beautiful women, Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak played parodies of over age prima donnas. There is zero chemistry between Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor and it is not because they are older than they were in Giant, it is because they do not seem to care, certainly the audience does not. Do not judge Agatha Christie by this boiler.


Set in 1953, there is great excitement in the village of St Mary Mead because an American film crew is coming to shoot their production of Mary Queen Of Scots at Gossington Hall, which is owned by Miss Marple's old friend Dolly Bantry (WENDY MORGAN). The crew comprises leading lady Marina Gregg (ELIZABETH TAYLOR), her husband and director Jason Rudd (ROCK HUDSON), Marina's co-star Lola Brewster (KIM NOVAK) and the producer Marty Fenn (TONY CURTIS). A party is held at the hall to celebrate the arrival of the crew, which is the most exciting thing to have happened in the village for many years. However, Marina and Lola don't get on and are forever trading insults and then tragedy strikes when local girl Heather Babcock (MAUREEN BENNETT) dies after drinking a cocktail laced with poison. It subsequently turns out that Heather spilt her drink and that Marina gave her hers so now it looks as if Marina was the intended victim. Inspector Dermot Craddock (EDWARD FOX) is in charge of the case and as he happens to be the nephew of the spinster detective Miss Marple (ANGELA LANSBURY), they both investigate the case together. However, before Miss Marple can present the solution to the interested parties and Craddock can make an arrest, the killer among the film crew strikes again...

THE MIRROR CRACK'D is based on Agatha Christie's 1962 Miss Marple whodunit, "The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side" and the film was EMI's third big budget, all-star Christie adaptation following up MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974) and DEATH ON THE NILE (1978). However, despite a pleasing recreation of the 1950's period, the film proved to be a complete disappointment as practically everyone in the star studded cast seems uncomfortable in their parts with the exceptions of Tony Curtis as maverick Hollywood producer Marty Fenn and Edward Fox as Inspector Craddock. There is a memorable scene (and there aren't many here) between the two where Craddock asks "What does The End stand for?" and Fenn replies "I don't know but it looks great up there on the silver screen". Angela Lansbury who offered an excellent performance as the alcoholic romantic novelist Salome Otterbourne in DEATH ON THE NILE is sadly wasted as Miss Marple as too little is seen of her despite the fact that she is one of the most important characters in the film. However, just a few years after this, she would achieve great success on television in the long running MURDER SHE WROTE as the mystery writer turned detective Jessica Fletcher. All in all, THE MIRROR CRACK'D is a pretty missable offering as very little tension is created and the direction is sadly lifeless. The mock fifties b-movie entitled "Murder At Midnight", which features the excellent British character actor Nigel Stock is a great laugh though.


I saw this on VHS at my video store and curiosity peaked. I usually watch stuff like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, SALO, and other controversial films, but this just sickened me out. CHICKEN HAWK is a film about NAMBLA (The North American Man/Boy Love Association), a bunch of weird old men who think it's okay to love boys as young as nine years old.

What I didn't like about this documentary was the fact that it seemed like it was promoting these people as decent, hardworking human beings. But when the camera reaches these sickos, they talk about how young boy's bodies are the most perfect ever. Gross! I believe in the First Amendment and all, but I think the members of NAMBLA are a bunch of perverts who can't control their own insecurities. There is nothing right about pedophilia. End of story.


I am loathe to say this as I rather enjoyed having a proxy version of my favourite (London) past time - watching people. However, this is a misconceived, ill-constructed film which makes a palindromic attempt to inflate a document of urban life whilst deconstructing a (half-baked) thriller.

The film is three acted (three 'nights'). In the first a man watches girls. In the second he follows one. In the third he watches them again, although there's a suggestion that he may have acted on what he's learnt from the first two. The film's merits are largely to do with the unimpeachably youthful beauty of the principals, although Michaël Balerdi, the young man, is a distractingly weak actor. As I mentioned I also liked the nicely photographed corners of Strasbourg and the drama inherent in the smattering of tracking shots...

... alas, these tracking shots are mucky, inconsistently rendered (an un-steadycam?). The continuity errors are glaring. I was also easily off-put by boom mic intrusion and imperfections on the print, as well as hopelessly rendered foley sound (really bad!).

The worst thing - and this is no one's fault - is that once the 'pursuit' gets going, the film immediately looks like the opening sequence of Michael Haneke's Caché. If you even begin to compare these similarly themed films Guerin's piece begins to look very clumsy indeed. 3/10


I saw this at the Sydney Fim Fest today and it was the third film in a row I saw, so that's maybe why I struggled to keep my eyes open :-) This film had such good ratings, especially all the 9's and 10's, that I decided to see it. Perhaps 3 out of 10 is a little harsh - I can see how Guerin's vision is unique in terms of creating the voyeuristic experience. There is virtually no dialogue so we are only left with the visual, which is relatively repetitive - and the sound, or often the lack thereof - once again repetitive and almost trance inducing, all those foot steps and the same extras. I'm going to go with the shallow end of the gene pool and call it "boring" - which is pretty trite considering that Guerin obviously thought a lot about how this film was going to be made and it is somewhat unique in that sense, I will give him that.... Most directors don't make such alienatory films.


I only ever write a review if I feel strongly about a film. I went to watch this movie with a friend in Manchester, to say it was boring would be a compliment! In fact I overheard to ladies say "I wish Mark had come to watch this movie, it would have been great punishment" and I could not have described it better myself! This movie is truly bad.I love world cinema but this film had no story line, hardly any dialect and the scenery itself was poor. If you want to wonder through streets following strangers then this is the movie for you! but do not expect to see any great architecture as all you will see is walls and tarmac! Within five minutes of the movie the boredom is set, having to observe a guy starring into space.and quite frankly the boredom never really leaves, I sat through this movie thinking it may get better but unfortunately it just gets worse, don't waste your money or your time in going to watch this especially dire film!


I've seen this movie at the Rotterdam Film Festival. A man is searching for a women he has met six years ago. Her name is Sylvia. For this purpose he returns to the city of Strasbourg. The movie ranges over a period of 3 days. The man, while searching through the city, visits known places, sits in a cafè, observes his environment. He listens to the people, watches at them, almost staring at them, so that the audience even gets the feeling of being a voyeur. And people he is starring at even don't notice that he did so or just ignore him. I did not like this film. There is almost no dialog in this film. And the story line is very slow, too slow. It had the effect of a sleeping pill on me. I would not recommend it.


How someone loved ALL of this movie, I cannot comprehend. It started off just strangely and slowly enough to captivate the audience. The middle of the movie was a bit long, drawn out, too self glorifying for words, and excessively contrived. But, I gave it a chance. Me, the most impatient person :)So, I sat there, only made a few snide, whispered remarks and continued to wait for the amazing ending that would bring the whole movie together and make me have at least a lilliputian epiphany. Needless to say, that semi interesting or even minimally boring ending did not come. Instead, the movie that had an amazing understanding of people, their emotions and how they express them, sometimes unwittingly, everywhere they go forgot to actually finish. The movie could have been amazing. The director could have done so much. So much more with it. But they did not, and what a waste. Which is why it is in the movie trash category that all independent movies without the last third go to. Too bad. Watch it, it is worth watching, but know to not expect much out of this sadly massacred film.


Lets be serious--it doesn't take a great director to make nazi skinheads look bad, and Pariah is a perfect example of this at work. It presents a very narrow view of racism, which connects only to a very narrow audience--those who are "in" the scene, etc. There were way too many overt plot details that could have been assumed or more subtly presented. I'd say see this if you want an exagerated, easy to digest film about nazi skinheads, but not if you want to get any new, smart, disturbing insight into the problems of racism and violence in youth subcultures.


Well, I bought myself this movie as it seemed to have an interesting content.But how I was disappointed, poor acting, a very poor story (sometimes getting real grotesque too) and even the making of the film looks sad.My advice for the director: Much shouting and beating doesn´t make a second ROMPER STOMPER, which is, a classic of modern films..at least that´s my opinion.So maybe more concentration on the story and better actors will do it.


This movie should be treated as a pariah for anyone in search of entertainment. It looks as though the whole thing has been thrown together in the space of a couple of days by a bunch of film students to cash in on the success of American History X.


After watching this attempt at film making I am glad that I didn't have to pay good money to see it. I have a friend that has an extensive collection of bad "B" movies in his collection and lent me this and a few others to watch while a was recovering from the flu. I told my friend to put Pariah in a new category of "C" films after suffering though it. I was sweating and had the shakes the entire time and I watched it and wasn't sure if it was the flu causing the sweating and shakes or the horrible movie I was watching. After watching the credits it was clear to me what the problem was. Anytime you get a first time film maker who writes AND directs their first film 9 times out of 10 it's going to be a mess. This film is a perfect example of that. Too long, poorly written, poorly acted, and most importantly what is the point of this film??????? The story is laughable and must have been written during a bad acid trip. Skin heads are dirt bags....we get it, but this film gave no insight into what makes these sub-human animals tick. And to compare this film to the likes of Romper Stomper and American history X leads me to believe that the people that put this film together are fluffing up their own movie on IMDb. Sad.


This movie has to be the worst film ever seen by mankind! I looked up the people that quote on the box and they don't seem to exist (I was already wondering what idiot said "A Clockwork Orange for the Nineties") The Story is simply not there; there is absolutely ZERO storyline and the acting is incredibly bad, amazingly bad, so baadd. Next to that, it doesn't make sense!

All in all, go see it and redefine "bad movie" for yourself.


I saw Pariah on television and I thought it was a TV-movie made in the early 90s. I was quite shocked to then discover that it had been made a recently as 1998, after both American History X (AHX) and Romper Stomper. Had it have been made earlier I would have forgiven its amateurish feel and, to be frank, embarrassing handling of the plot and story line.

A good way of seeing how ineffective this movie is, is to compare it with the things it is trying to emulate. The story itself (for those unaware) is lifted directly from The Crow by J O'Barr. If you want to see the same plot idea handled in an incredibly powerful, subtle and truly masterful way then read the comic (not the film). I'd class Pariah's handling of the neo-Nazi aspect as being more like Romper Stomper in the way it superficially deals with the matter. However Romper Stomper does it so much better.

To focus on the movie itself, it's all very poor. The acting is poor, the scripts are poor, the directing poor....the whole thing is just poor. Some scenes had me flinching with embarrassment they were so bad. Despite the fact that I'm slating it, I still gave it 4/10. If it's on television and you have nothing better to do then watch it, it'll pass the time, it's not *that* bad. But if you enjoy the violent neo-Nazi romanticising movie then watch Romper Stomper as it's better. If you enjoy the revenge theme then read (or, to a lesser extent, watch) The Crow. I don't really want to draw any comparisons with AHX as that movie is in a different league and is one of my all-time favourite movies. AHX is the thinking man's Romper Stomper....I wouldn't even want to say what AHX is in relation to Pariah.


I saw this movie a while ago, awaiting a good and critical movie. I´m not afraid of a little violence in movies, but in this movie it just made no sense. Random useless violence all the time. There just wasn´t any goal. Maybe the director wanted to bring this feeling to the viewers, but that could have been done in much better ways.

The characters in this movie also have a complete lack of personality. The are flat characters who just commit violent stuff.

A ´not so good´ movie which stands in no comparison to American History X and Romperstomper.


This is one bad movie. I've seen better acting in adult movies. The plot if there is one is totally pointless as you just see skinheads do exactly what the cliché tells you they do: going round being racist and aggressive to everything and everyone. Stay clear of this one because it's a real stinker.


This movie was probably the worst skinhead movie that I have ever seen. The plot was really bad and the acting was even worse. If you want to watch a good movie in this genre, watch Romper Stomper. Don't waste your time watching this.


This is the worst movie i have ever seen. i rented this after seeing American History X and almost laughed at how this movie attempted to tackle the race issue compared to the brilliant AH X.

This movie was ugly to watch because of the poor cinematography and acting.

The cover of the video had a caption from a review which said it was 'far better than the overrated American History X'. This film uses graphic scenes in an attempt to shock, but the film lacks any substance and makes such scenes just offensive. The reviewer must have been the brother of the film-maker, because the movie sucks.

This movie is inferior to both American History X, and the groundbreaking Romper Stomper. While this review may seem scathing, if you see the film you will think i am going easy on it. Steer very clear.


Lol, please. People... please. If you honestly consider this a good movie, something is sincerely wrong with you. The acting.. the plot.. literally everything in this movie was so utterly horrible. To enjoy this movie you'd have to have an IQ under 40. It was like a neighborhood teen gathering his friends and filming over-dramatic racism. I can't begin to talk about how horrible the acting was. This movie was about as "real and in your face" as a water-pistol.

It's not even worthy to be compared to American History X, which was a great movie. Romper Stomper was alright. However I still believe the most insightful, smart, intelligent, powerful Skinhead flick is "The Believer". Which was also a low-budget film, but with a vastly complex story-line and amazing acting-- let alone, actor. Ryan Gosling as the main character Danny Balint in The Believer, I believe, blows all the previously mentioned movies out of the water.

Want a good movie? Check out The Believer.


I was in pain after watching the seemingly never ending mess that is Pariah. In pain from laughing so hard at the nonsense I witnessed, that is. I am not shocked to see from his IMDb page that Director, Randolph Kret was never allowed to waste investors money again. It makes me wonder how much money was spent making this film. The story was silly, stupid and boring. Plain and simple it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen and I've seen some junk in my time. The portrayal of the skinheads was WAY over the top. Again, I can't stress enough how bad this story was. It was all over the place. My advice to anyone who sees this movie at the video store is to save the 99 cents it would cost to rent this movie. I don't think it's worth a nickel.


I have read all the bad reviews about this movie, and I have to agree with most of what has been said. It is true that the film is just plain ugly to look at, and the over-acting is sometimes embarrassing. But perhaps the critics are being a bit unfair by measuring it next to films like "American History X" and "Romper Stomper". If you put it next to a highly-produced Hollywood film like A.H.X, then sure this one will look sick in comparison. Or if you put it next to a truly fantastic piece of cinema like "Romper Stomper", a film that actually played in art house cinemas around the world, it just isn't fair. The only thing these films have in common is their subject matter: skinheads. Period. Pariah lacks the artistic merits of these "legitimate" films. But when looked at in the "trash film" context, then this one becomes at least entertaining. Perhaps watch this one in the same way that you would watch "Toxic Avenger", or "Shaft", or "Class of 1984" etc.. Of course the way they portray skinheads in this movie is nauseating, offensive, and highly inaccurate. But lets face it; there are so few films made about the punk and skinhead scene, that when something comes along, we just have to see it. Anyway, look at the way punks are portrayed in "Class of 1984". Murderous criminals! But like Pariah, that flick is good for a laugh. In short, look at this one while you're hanging out and drinking with friends. You have to admit, this trash film does deliver the goods when it comes to violence. It is stomach-turning in some places. And if you want to see a good, thought-provoking film about skinheads, see "Luna Park", the one about the Russian skinheads. But don't expect a lot of action there. By the way, remember "Skinheads: Second Coming of Hate" with Chuck Conners?? Now there is a classic. "Pariah" is almost good compared to that one! A.C.A.B.


Well,it made me cry anyway,as i spent money purchasing this DVD to find out it was a waste of time...

...I remember seeing this on TV at some point when I was younger and thinking it wasn't bad,but Id only watched it from halfway through so when I found it on IMDb,I decided to purchase it.Mistake.This film,admittedly low-budget,is just too amateur and low-brow, making you feel that half the time the director has forgotten which way he wants the film to go.

The skinheads in it are awful,I mean,they purely cant act and there's no explanation behind why many of them are skinheads and why they stroll around in the attire they do,which no actual genuine skinhead would do.The lead (Damon Jones is it?)acts poorly also,usually having a rant then remembering he should be angry so suddenly starting screaming...I could go on and on about how pants this film is but ill summarise:

-Cardboard characters -Very disappointing storyline dealt with by earlier movies (eg: The Crow) -Diabolical Dialogue -Very amateur looking

Id recommended Romper Stomper if you want a skinhead bashing-fest or American History X,which is thousands of years ahead of this film,despite being made earlier.


I don't know why people keep comparing this movie with Romper stomper and American history X.To me it was nothing like them.It reminded me more of a TV movie called Brotherhood of murder.The special features on the DVD were interesting and fun to watch.There was deleted scenes,auditions,interesting skinhead facts and more. The only thing I hated was the movie was more about homophobia and gay bashing.Not that I support Nazi skinheads but I don't understand why they were so threatened by gays instead of the groups of black and Asian gangs in the neighborhood.There was an interesting remark made in the DVD extra features that mentions that there is more violence within their own ranks then there is violence towards others.I loved the scene in the movie when a huge group of gay men got together and bashed the skinheads back.I have never seen that before in a movie and they deserved the beating.It was nice to see a bit of payback from the gay community.Ironically the most vicious gay hating skinhead David Lee played by David Lee Willson has come out as a gay man in real life.I read a really cool article about this actor and how hard it was for him to play such an evil hateful role. A lot of people felt the acting in this movie was horrible.Yes some scenes were badly acted and a few of the actors were really bad, but it was their first time and this was the director's first film I believe.To me it seemed like real life and not the worst acting i've seen in a film. However David Wilson,Damon Jones,and David Oren Ward gave the best performances.Sadly I just learned actor David Oren Ward died tragically which is a shame since he was both talented and very handsome. The shocking rape scene was really well done but I didn't like how she treated her boyfriend afterwords since he was helpless to save her.And then to kill herself afterwards was cowardly and not believable.Yes it was traumatic but I have never heard of rape victims taking their own life because of it.What the skinheads did was rotten,but then so was what the group of black men did to her and her boyfriend.And then later the same group of blacks targeted the white girls.I am sure it probably happens a lot also,but they don't seem to be depicted as bad guys which is a total double standard.At that point I was waiting for the skinhead group to get even with them for shooting an innocent kid who was only lured into it because he was mentally challenged.And they were also protecting their female members from being nearly assaulted which any gang would do no matter who they are. In Pariah only 2 or 3 of them seemed like skinheads.At one point I was beginning to think they were not a group of skinheads but a bunch of unstable street kids.They all came from dysfunctional families,some were abused,a few were either mentally retarded and others just homeless and some brain dead from all the drug abuse.They were more like street punks who were discarded and who just wanted to fit in and belong. Another really good movie that is similar but not really about skinheads is the 1984 movie called suburbia.I read it was coming to DVD finally and I am looking forward to seeing it again.It reminded me of pariah, but an 80's version.


From the director of Chinese Ghost Story and Naked Weapon (and collaborator in the action scenes from Hero and House of the Flying Daggers), we have a story about an ex-CIA agent who's daughter is kidnapped. Its not just any ex-CIA agent, but Steven Seagal. Yes !! Pony-tail is back, BACK WITH A VENGEANCE. (Sorry, I had to do that).

This is your typical action movie, usually based on some revenge/honor theme, where the hero has to take out dozens to hundreds of henchman and usually a "Boss" character, or several. The acting is atrocious and all we are left with is the action (and a lot of wire-work). Steven brought his typical dead-pan/Prozac acting along. This movie is not going to be on anybody's Christmas list, however, it is hysterical and very very light. I was laughing the whole way through the movie.

Steven Seagal is looking to do some major butt-kicking. Unfortunately, most of the serious butt-kicking is done by a much younger, thinner man (the stunt guy is actually wearing fake fat to look like Steven), who has a lot more physical talent than Steven had in his prime. This is further compounded by the fact that the stunt man performs stunts that Steven could never perform (jump kicks, jump spin kick, and all other stunts involving jumping high).

The movie seems to have been filmed entirely in Bangkok, Thailand and recruited what seems to be the entire cast of Onk Bak, minus Tony Jaa. The wheelchair boss and Don the drug dealer stand out in my mind.

There are somethings about the movie that bother me. Steven (who is the star of the movie) looks like he just woke up in Bangkok after weeks of binging on milkshakes and vodka, with no money and no change of clothes. He looks dirty and grimy. I wouldn't sit next to him on the subway if he looked like that. Next, what was up with the Steven's gun? He seemed to have a magic weapon. This weapon fires anywhere from 30-50 bullets and rarely needs another clip. Also Steven has become such a big star, he no longer needs to aim his weapon. He just fires in the general direction of his target. Steven's sex scene was certainly interesting. It made me quite nauseous. Shoving toothpicks under my fingernails is pleasurable as compared to watching Steven has sex. The cinematography was quite strange. I didn't realize the same guy who did certain Outer Limit and Star Trek episodes was still alive (tilt the camera 45 degrees). The wire action becomes ridiculous, especially when you are trying to make a somewhat realistic action movie (imagine what one would think if Tony Jaa jumped 10 feet straight in the air and did 2 full revolutions). I also like the variation on Thai boxing : Thai Transvestite Claws and High Heels Boxing. Not only that, what was the deal with all the mystical crap introduced 10 minutes before the end of the movie, complete with with a Thai Mako impersonator who had taken too much PCP ??

One may think from my review that I hated this movie. This is not true. This is the funniest movie I've seen since Shaun of the Dead, unfortunately that movie was trying to be funny. I do recommend this movie as a rental,a discount-bin purchase, or a late night cable session while completely wasted.

-Celluloid Rehab


Even though Steven Seagal has made movies who are much worse than this, this is still far from being his best work. I wonder if the whole movie was made just for self-ironical reasons (remember, Seagal fortunately has a lot of self-irony). The main problem is that Seagal is too fat too be a real action-star right now. Some of the fights in this movie still are pretty cool, but there are just something that isn't there. Maybe it's because some of the fights are so overdone so that everyone know that it isn't Mr.Seagal doing most of it anyway? The worst part about the fighting is the roundhouse kicks. Even though they're rather cool, they're as far from the typical Seagal fighting style that it's possible to be. And you never see Steven's face when these are performed..........................

The story is standard, but that's totally OK. No one cares too much about that anyway in a movie like this. This is in fact one of Seagal's best movies after "Exit Wounds". That doesn't mean that this one is any good, because some of the others are pure garbage.


Here's something I never expected I'd be saying about 'Belly of the Beast': It is an entertaining action movie. That's right, it may a new Seagal movie that has a totally disjointed plot and an identity crisis regarding what style of action movie it wants to be, but its a fun way to kill time.

Seagal plays Jake Hopper, an ex-CIA agent (you guessed it) working on the side as a professional ninja for an old agency buddy. This led me into thinking that ole' Stevie could very well star in a 'Beverly Ninja Hills Ninja 2' film, he certainly is getting to look a little like Chris Farley. Jake seems rather uninterested when he is informed that Muslim extremists in the north of Thailand have kidnapped his daughter, but that's only a cover for his apparent unlimited rage, at least according to the tag line. So Jake is off to Thailand to his rescue his daughter and show off his UNLIMITED RAGE!

Now I realize that 'Belly of the Beast' is a poor film in every aspect of film-making, but its one of those endearingly bad films. The plot is disjointed and sometimes predictable, sometimes suffering from an identity crisis. Seagal seems as excited as he always is (i.e. he actually looks really bored and seems as though he would prefer a quiet night in with a video instead of attempting to kick arse), and his physical fitness really needs to be questioned. You can hear his heavy breathing throughout the film, seemingly suggesting that Seagal just carried a box of donuts up small flight of stairs and now he he needs to recover. The fact that he even has a sex scene is just disturbing to even think about and is best left as one of those "let's never speak of this again" moments. In a scene in which Seagal is chatting up a monk, his voice actually changes! Some suggest Seagal was dubbed in that scene, but I always suspected that Stevie was the romantic type (at least when talking to monks).

The lack of any distinct action style doesn't help things. Seagal starts the movie off with some Tai-Chi and kicking that Stevie can't possibly perform in his shape and also sends his opponents flying through walls. When I realized who the director was, none of this surprised me and I even expected some sort of mystical battle to end the movie. I did not expect random normal shootouts and random 'Matrix'-style shootouts. Basically what we have here is almost a fantasy ninja movie with John Woo adding lots of guns, or something like that. It is confusing, it isn't compelling, but it makes for cheap entertainment.

I should probably feel shame for saying 'Belly of the Beast' was enjoyable. It is a terrible film, and most people really should avoid it, but there are a select few out there who (like me) can use this for cheap laughs - 2/10


After the awful Foreigner & Out for a Kill I had this movie written-off before I'd watched it, thankfully it turned out to be much better then recent efforts.

Lots of action, sometimes a bit overkill (how many people were shot!). I don't know if Seagal is continuing to make Eastern movies now but this was all the better for it!

What was with the car on the front cover of the DVD though? Did I miss that part? :)


What you get here is 38 Bullets with one stripe of ammo, the worst-acting-ever-world-record and the beastly belly of Mr. "Bud-Spencer of the 90's" Steven Seagal. Then there is the script. Anyone watch the thug in the market slip on a tomato, fall and then ACCIDENTALLY slide headfirst into a knife????? Did they legalize cocaine in Hollywood??? Anyone watch Seagal jump through the paper-thin wooden wall of the train while shooting, what, 20 rounds out of a single pistol, killing 3 men(all this in 3,5 seconds!!!)??? Seagal's films used to be so stupid that one could find some entertainment laughing about them, but this is so bad, it only makes you wanna pass out, so you can stop barfing over your sofa.


Steven Seagal is getting old and flying kicks and all that kung fu isn't him half the time it is a stunt double. He should stick to aikido and breaking bones at least it wouldn't look as ridiculous. One whole scene they use a voice over for Seagals voice...very strange. Maybe he should come out with under siege 3 get a couple of mainstream actors and directors involved. Russell Wong was listed everywhere as being in the movie...he wasn't anywhere in the movie i just saw.


First things first, I love the classic Seagal movies. I own every one on DVD from Above the Law to Exit Wounds. Since then, Seagal hasn't made one good film. I couldn't believe that his output had gotten so bad, so I was researching his stv output on IMDb and trying to see which one was the best of the trash pile. Lots of hardcore Seagal fans seemed to like this one, so I rented it. What a forgettable mess. There are little glimmers of hope here and there, but overall this is garbage. If this is good compared to his other films of the past four years, he's really in trouble. The only other STV Seagal films I've seen are "The Patriot": not bad but boring, and "The Foreigner": terrible. Steven, what's up man? Instead of making 10 bad movies a year, make one good one. And, I'm sorry man, but lose some weight, too.


After having seen the gory and over-the-top silly "Dr. Giggles" hundreds of times and loving it more with every viewing, it's rather difficult to accept that Manny Coto's debut film "Playroom" is such an ambitious and serious-minded psycho thriller. I surely wasn't expecting to see an attempt for intellectual horror, set in Eastern Europe and focusing on topics like archeology and child-psychology, so "Dr. Giggles"-fans beware!! It's not even an admirable attempt, as the screenplay is very uninteresting, tedious and a total bunch of nonsense. An obtrusive reporter convinces his girlfriend-editor to travel to Yugoslavia, more particularly to an ancient abbey where he and his archaeologist-father searched for the tomb of a fella named Ilok. After a couple of days of digging with no results, Chris goes completely nuts, has visions of his former imaginary childhood friend and kills the rest of the expedition crew. Big deal! "Playroom" is boring, mainly because you never care for Chris or his bad case of split personality syndrome. This is only the first time I see Christopher MacDonald in a lead role (he usually plays supportive characters) and he already fails to convince us of his acting capabilities. There's absolutely no tension, although Coto seemly tried hard to create some, and the supportive characters are all insufferable. Well, except for the great Vincent Schiavelli but his role is regretfully brief. There also is an irritating lack of gore and there seemly weren't enough budgets to buy a couple of extra light bulbs, as entire sequences are filmed in the dark. One final piece of advise for young scriptwriters: there's NOTHING even remotely scary about kids' imaginary friends! Especially not if these imaginary friends are ordinary looking kids as well.


I bought this movie on VHS a while back and watched it last night. I was looking forward to seeing this movie, but was kinda disappointed in the end.

Here's the story (spoiler?):

An archaeologist (Christopher McDonald) has returning nightmares about his childhood when his family was killed. His father was (also played by Christopher McDonald) an archaeologist too and wants to finish his father's work (finding a tomb of an 10- year-old prince who sold his soul to a demon for eternal life) after he finds the map in a book cover. He and his girlfriend and 2 other friends (one alcoholic photographer and an ex-model.....to give the characters some depth......) go to the same place in Serbia were his family was killed to find this tomb. Once there, he get's obsessed with finding the entrance to the tomb and slowly goes insane when his imaginary friend appears again....

*******SPOILER*********

Turns out he killed his family out of revenge (and being under the influence of his imaginary friend) for being locked up in the "playroom" by his father. In there he makes up an imaginary friend. This imaginary friend turns out to be the prince "who doesn t want to be alone". Together they plot to kill his family and blame it on a worker.

There are some huge holes and non-logical things in the story and the story is also very simplistic. The main character goes insane very quickly, the ex-model changes from a Buddist to a nymph, the people in Serbia speak English etc etc.

Also I didn't like Christopher McDonald's acting. A lot of over-acting, which didn't work for me.

The movie isn't scary at all, nore bloody. But the thing that ruined the movie were the SE of the prince. First we see a young boy, but then we get to see his "real appearance": Some plastic dummy with the voice of that same boy!

2 Things I liked though: The setting off the movie in Serbia. That looked great. Second: I liked the ending.

But you have check that for yourself!


"Everybody's All American" tells of a college football hero's trek through life. This film is fraught with over-acting, terrible southern accents, obvious ploys to push viewer's emotional buttons, and a wandering story lacking in cohesion and integrity...to name but a few of the many flaws. A directorial disaster. Pass on this dog...or punt.


I watched this film before i read the movie or had seen Kubrick's film.

When i read the book and compared it to this film, i realized that this film is a failure in representing the book of Nabokov.

Sure, more of the story events take place in this film then Kubrick's, but it translated the scenes completely inaccurate as to how they were described in the book.

All of the characters in the book were completely different as to how they are portrayed in this film.

Humbert in the book was a mean manipulative snake type of character. A self-obsessed flamboyant character, with a taste for doing dirty deeds to reach his goals. Humbert in the book doesn't love Lolita. Not her character anyway. He is a man sexually obsessed with her looks and her age, not her personality, which he complaints time after time in the book. The Humbert character in the book was a lot closer to Clare Quilty then the 1997 movie makes it seem.

This film makes Jeremy Irons's Humbert a tragic traumatized drama character full of guilt and despair. A tragic romantic lonesome man with a broken heart and basically a good person besides one little flaw.

Then Lolita in the book. Lolita in the books 12, and basically not much different from your average girl in the early days of puberty. Experimenting with the power of sexuality? Yes. Slutty? No. Lolita in the book is just a girl who got into this situation by accident, and tries all that she can for her young age to stay alive.

The Lolita in the book is not the sexualized naughty teenager we see in the media. That was the result of various forms of media exploitation.

The Lolita in the book didn't have any blond or red braids or pigtails, and didn't wear sailor or any other stereotype outfits.

The Lolita in the book was girl with dark brown bobbed hair, and a honey tanned skin, with a polka-dot bikini.

However, the 1997 film portrayed Lolita the way she's been portrayed as a stereotype teenage hussy in the sex industry as well as the regular media. With her reddish blond braids and pigtails, stereotypical child-girl outfits and average ordinary sleazy teenage character, the Lolita played by Dominique Swain is NOTHING like the character in the book. Neither by look or by character.

Then Clare Quilty in the book was described as a charismatic artist. Ultimately a dangerous wealthy pervert, but he was never described as a dirty old man. Clare Quilty in the book was a Humbert with a bigger house and more money.

Clare Quilty in this movie is portrayed as the audience of today expects it. The "Marc Dutroux" type of sick dirty pig-like maniac.

I thought this movie was good at the point when i hadn't read the book, but after i read the book, i thought is was a failure.

I dislike it because when it came out, the production team and every newspaper and article claimed that this movie was made absolutely faithful to the book. When i read the book, i found out that is was all but faithful to Vladimir Nabokov's book.

Kubrick's film may have been a bit shy and tame, but it was closer to the heart and soul of Nabokov's novel. It didn't hide important key elements of Humbert's twisted personality.

Before you watch this movie, read the book. After you've seen this movie, read the book again.


The film's opening number "I'm Taking a Shine to You" poses the question - why didn't Ann Miller become a bigger star - she had the looks, personality and the talent. This number is a great introduction to her.Unfortunately, there was no more dancing for Ann until her dazzling tap solo for the "Speak Your Heart" finale.

The story is extremely corny. Jack Oakie plays Harry Miller, a talentless songwriter and a pretty unlikable character. Bob Burns is a hillbilly who composes popular songs in his sleep. Unbeknown to him Miller and his off sider (Milton Berle) copy them down and then pass them off as Miller originals. Bob Burns, of course is amazed - wishing he could write songs like that.

He falls in love with Ann Miller (who looks young enough to be his daughter) but when she becomes engaged to Kenny Baker, he develops insomnia. So comes the very boring, unfunny part of the film when Milton Berle and Jack Oakie try, by different means to get him to sleep. There was just too much unfunny clowning by Berle.

Hermes Pan (obviously between Astaire and Rogers films) made Miller shine - she obviously had the talent from the start of her career and just refined it as she became more of a professional.

Jane Froman was also definitely a highlight for me as well. "Speak Your Heart" was a beautiful production number with Jane's soaring vocals and Millers dazzling tap solo. I can only recommend the film for those two performers who rise above the trite storyline with great performances.


I liked this movie and it gave me the "heebie-jeebies" when I first saw it. (I spook easily)It has the classic elements of a good old fashioned Southern ghost story. Throw in a little voo-doo and a New Orleans cemetery and it doesn't get much better. However, having recently seen "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" with Olivia DeHavilland and Bette Davis, there are certain elements that are brazen ripoffs from the DeHaviland/Davis work. Makes me think less of the more recent of these two films. Odd and eerie seeing Ms. DeHavilland playing such an ugly, selfish and mean character...she will always be Melanie Wilkes in my mind. It took me a minute to recognize Agnes Moorehead as Velma....she looked completely different from her role as Endora on "Bewitched."


Demonic Toys starts with two undercover cops Judith Gray (Tracy Scoggins) & Matt Cable (Jeff Weston) going undercover to arrest a couple of arms dealers Lincoln (Michael Russo) & Hesse (Barry Lynch). They meet in an isolated parking lot where things get out of hand & Lincoln shoots Matt dead, Matt also happens to be Judith's lover so she has extra incentive to take both of them in. Judith manages to wound Hesse who along with Lincoln break into a nearby warehouse belonging to 'ARCADIA TOYS' where Judith follows them. Judith detains Lincoln but they are both locked in a store room with a steel door while elsewhere Hesse crawls across a strange glowing spot on the floor badly injured & bleeding, as his blood drips onto the floor an evil demon is given the power to bring some of the various toys to life & Hesse first has his face chewed off by a mutant Jack in the Box, he then has his fingers bitten off by an incredibly vicious teddy bear & finally Hesse is shot by a toy robot using blue laser beams. Mark Wayne (Bently Mitchum) an employee of 'Chunky Chicken' fast food restaurant turns up to deliver an order to the grossly overweight foul-mouthed security guard named Charnetski (Peter Schrum), they both hear noises coming from the store room & discover Judith. Charnetski tries to go for help but is killed by the demonic toys, everyone, along with a homeless kid named Anne (Ellen Dunning) find themselves trapped in the warehouse & that these toys are controlled by a demon who grows stronger with each of their death's, stronger to achieve his ultimate hideous aim...

Directed by Peter Manoogian for the 'killer toy' specialist's Full Moon Demonic Toys doesn't rank particularly high in this horror film sub-genre as far as I'm concerned. The script by David S. Goyer who has since gone on to write massive Hollywood films such as Blade (1998), Blade II (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004), Dark City (1998), Batman Begins (2005) & the upcoming Ghost Rider (2006) film was amongst his first & after this it's a wonder he was ever let near any of those films. The characters are extremely one dimensional, they have virtually no personality or background although having said that a one or two of them were sort of likable. Demonic Toys is about a demon trying to resurrect itself more than killer toys, this demon just uses them every once in a while to knock off one of the cast members. No explanation is given as to who this demon is or where he came from & Goyer also throws in some of those annoying dream sequences & the demon taking the form of dead characters trying to trick those still alive, you know the sort of thing. I would also like to know how that killer teddy bear managed to grow to human sized proportions. Demonic Toys is clichéd & starts to become dull as it's easy to tell who's going to die & survive & it features no logic or sense whatsoever. Technically Demonic Toys is cheap & nasty, the production design consists of placing lots of cardboard boxes with 'ARCADIA TOYS' written on them in each location & it becomes monotonous very quickly. There are various mistakes & errors & the special effects are generally poor except a rather good stop-motion animated toy soldier at the end. The music by Richard Band sounds like, but not as good, the theme from the far superior Dolls (1987) which isn't a surprise as Band also scored that. The killer toys themselves lack imagination except the Jack in the box who is the first toy to be killed anyway so don't expect to see a lot of him. The gore is tame & unconvincing apart from a reasonable decapitation, there are a few bites, a few gunshot wounds, a scene when someone pokes his own eyes out, someone is poked in the eye & someone has their fingers bitten off. The acting is OK for this sort of thing & both Scoggins & the goofy Mitchum make for pleasantly likable leads. Overall the best thing thing I can about Demonic Toys is that I thought it passed 80 odd minutes without to much pain but there isn't a whole lot here that impressed me & I'll have probably forgotten about it by next week (or at least I hope I will have). If your after a good, fun & entertaining killer toy film then check out the Puppet Master (1989 - 2003) & it's sequels, Dolls or the Child's Play (1988 - 2004) films instead. Great title, below average film but still maybe worth a watch if your absolutely desperate or a killer toy film fan.


I expect more from Full Moon, one of the better direct-to-video companies. The toys LOOK like they have a hand in them controlling their movements and actions, and you can clearly see the cord attached to the delivery boy when he is "thrown" back by the goofy-looking bear-toy-monster. Not very good at all.


"Demonic Toys" is a curious mixture of gore and cheesiness - in about equal measures. In fact, this film epitomizes cheesiness: stupid plot, uneven effects, mostly terrible acting (save for leading lady Tracy Scoggins, who is too awesome-looking for her acting to matter anyway), and dialogue laced with lame puns ("You messed up my make-up"!). But the gore is pretty extreme and over-the-top (the dolls rip off huge chunks of flesh from the faces of their victims). It's a bad film, but tolerable IF you're in the right mood.....(*1/2)


A police bust goes awry, resulting in the death of a police officer. His partner (Tracy Scoggins) chases the killers to a warehouse full of toys, but she doesn't know that tonight the toys will awaken and be filled with diabolic spirits. Along with a fast food delivery driver and a bumbling security guard, can she defeat the toys and Satan or will the demon achieve his highest goal -- being born into a human host?

Full Moon films aren't really known for being awesome, and this film is no exception. It's slow, focuses too little on the toys and returns to a dream sequence more times than is really necessary. Focusing on the toys more may not be a wise idea, though, because with one or two exceptions, John Buechler's creations are little more than well-crafted hand puppets. Two drunk kids with the proper equipment could have made this film, and probably have done better. (The only toy that was cool was Baby Oopsie Daisy.)

The cast was alright, even though the acting was more or less worthless. The male police officer was played by an atrocious actor, so his untimely death was a welcome addition to the film. And the hairstyles of the early 1990s pretty much guaranteed that none of the cast involved was attractive to look at. Sure, Miss July (Kristine Rose) was respectably hot, but I wasn't convinced. And I thought the homeless girl (Ellen Dunning) had a very Mandy Mooresque voice and face, which kept my heart beating rapidly. But still not good enough.

I'd like to say it's a good film by Full Moon standards and by the fact that this was the director's first picture. But that's no excuse and really not true. Full Moon pumps out sludge better than this all the time... although after seeing "Gingerdead Man", I can assure you they also make much worse.

There's no good reason to rent or buy this film. If you're trying to bring back memories of your childhood, you're probably better off just sticking to the memories. This film will crush them and leave you crying and soulless. Just because "Puppet Master" is possibly a winner (see separate review) and "Child's Play" is a winner, combining the two doesn't ensure a winner if it's handled by no-talent hacks.


Man, i remember this movie. when I was little I use 2 always watch this. I use 2 be scared of it 2, but now that its 2005, the movie is so cheesy now. Demonic Toys, Wax Works and all of the Puppet Masters are so lame now. Even though years before I was terrified!!!! It's really weird 2 look back on all the things that scared u when u were younger, and look at them now. All I can do is laugh at this corny crap! It's just so weird. It was around the time that killer dolls were frighting. But Chucky is still watchable. He's still somewhat creepy I guess, but now it's nothing but good old humor!! I do however suggest that u rent this film or even buy it if u want 2 watch a comedy. It should be fun 2 sit around with friends and laugh at this movie. Besides that the plot was awful and the effects were useless, u could find something good about it if u look hard enough. But me? Absolutely not, I still can't believe this use 2 give me goose bumps!


'Kejar Amerika' interestingly got a share of good comments from IMDb users. Funny because for a movie that didn't get a theatrical release in Indonesia (that's saying something because they put anything on theaters here as long as it has picture and sound), some people who admitted to be scholars even had time to write long comments on it.

I saw this at its first screening (with many walks-out). The movie was jaw-droppingly bad. Technically-inept with a direction that could have come from a 13 year-old. The acting is embarrassingly awful with a convoluted, super-dumb plot that only managed to create some unintentional giggles for the first five minutes, until it becomes a total boredom. Clearly written by someone who doesn't speak Indonesian because the dialogues do not make much sense.

How's this for a story: an Indonesian boy whose biggest dream is going to the U.S. won a lucky draw from a soft drink company to go to California. Well, actually the bad guy arranged his winning, so they can smuggle a paper containing a formula for a powerful drug in his back pack. Why don't they just e-mail the goddamn formula?

The rest of the story is just an excuse for over-acting and director Sungkar's ambition to make a movie. Sungkar is Canadian and he probably thought Indonesian audience are very stupid to swallow his movie. Well, guess the audience are smarter than he thought.

Avoid at any cost. This is no excuse for low budget film-making. This is simply unwatchable crap.


Let me start off by saying that I feel like I've lost about 12 IQ points from watching this movie! Freddie Prinze Jr. and Julia Stiles have absolutely no chemistry together. Also if you were looking for another one of those teeny-bopper movies, this it is not. It seems that they were trying to make it seem like a teen movie, but at the same time make them act like they wanted to be adults. This movie dulls the senses and numbs the mind. Please do not watch this movie.


SPOILER ALERT!! This is on my worst- movies- of- all- time list. I usually don't like to comment negatively on IMDB, but I feel like this mistake of a film should not be committed again. You cannot tell your audience to take a suicide

seriously if he tries to kill himself by drinking a bottle of her favorite shampoo-- I'm sorry, that's absurd. Having sex with Entimann's cake-- not cool. Pretending like these people go to Columbia University-- also not cool (although Julia Stiles actually does and she's very nice I hear, so I don't want to bad-mouth her, just her choice to play the part). The whole movie just pretty much sucked-- it didn't make sense, you didn't care about the characters, there were awful lines. It was an overly melodramatic love story coupled with what the writer probably thought was clever, original romantic, fun things, but in fact we were laughing at it-- not with it... Better luck next time guys!!