ahhh...dear old nineteen seventy four. The world's economy was crumbling under the impact of the oil shock, Richard Nixon's head was on the block and wars were raging in Vietnam, Ulster, Cyprus and Cambodia. If you were a randy adolescent, what better way to escape the madness than by slipping into a grotty pre-Multiplex era cinema, Barrat's sherbert fountain in hand, Pearl and Dean ads in your ears and explore the wonderful new world of the permissive society? The Joy of Sex had just been published, Aids was still many years away...what carnal delights could be had in those bell-bottomed, glammed up times? And if Confessions of a Window Cleaner's protagonist, young Timmy Lea, was at all typical, then being a demin-clad, rubber lipped minger was no barrier to scoring more hole-in-ones than Tiger Woods. Robin Askwith, previously a bit-part actor in Carry On Girls is introduced to us a what passes for an English stud in the days of Slade and three day weeks. He's no loser, the theme song assures us, he just 'doesn't ever win.' Scrubbing windows up and down Merrie England, he looks into a bedroom and sees a badly edited film of some nude girl oiling herself. His work puts him in contact with innumerable clapped out housewives whose 'botties' and 'beezers' are invariably popped out for the benefit of our (possibly clapped up) Cassanova. One wonders if the ever present threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union spurred these women into getting as much 'crumpet' as possible before the real big bang. Anyway, Timmy's brother-in-law, Sid (Tony Booth) is soon to be a father but that doesn't stop him from chasing the skirt. Timmy himself spouts sexist attempts at humour 'What a knocker factory!' with such aplomb, there is a certain weird genius to Askwith's performance. It takes skill to portray a leading character who is such an unbelievably charmless neanderthal. Timmy puts it about but he finds himself falling for the blond Liz (no English Bardot but still light years out of his league) who inevitably takes a dim view of her boyfriend eying up nude school girls and so forth. Elsewhere, casual homophobia and racism make you wonder if the script writers just decided to sit in on a National Front pub quiz. As for the sex...well in the unlikely event of a 40th anniversary DVD in 2014 may I suggest a tag-line? (putting the 'rot' into erotica). But if one thing does make Confessions interesting is that, away from the smut and the crass humour (the likes of which make the Carry Ons look like The Simpsons) Confessions offers a view of 1970s urban England to complete with the angriest Ken Loach movie in terms of its dystopian bleakness. Peeling flock wallpaper and horrid furniture surround Sid and Timmy Lea in their council house while the apartments of some of the 'birds' whose windows they scrub are resplendently ghastly. Maybe there was a surfeit of wild sex to be had in those far off times. Watch this movie and conclude that it was small consolidation.


I have to disagree with Emma Burridge, except for her statement that it is on a par with On the Buses as an example of 1970's comedy. The 1970's are almost certainly the worst years of British comedy - we had such "greats" as Love thy Neighbour, George and Mildred and Robin's Nest - the story lines and (supposed) humour of which were not only obvious and transparent but very shallow and unsophisticated. That is to say that they cannot cause even a ripple of mirth now, and it surprises me that they would have done when they were filmed. I do think that there were some good comedies in the 1970's, though, and these include Dad's Army (although after James Beck's death these were considerably weaker, relying on slapstick from Clive Dunn and to a lesser extent Arthur Lowe) but of course, this was really a 2060's comedy; altogether a different era of quality. As for the "Confessions" films, not one of them should raise a laugh at any stage, and it really does seem barely credible that standards of decency and morality have dropped so far that most people nowadays would find it hard to credit that these were X rated films when they were made.


This is what the 'Carry On' movies would be like if they lacked any jokes, innuendo or restraint. This grubby movie, the first of four, has slapper Robin Askwith having unprotected sex with numerous horny housewives on his window cleaning round, while his brother-in-law Anthony Booth cheats on his pregnant wife! What a larf, eh? Aside from the dubious morality of this so-called comedy, wit and suggestion are so far out of the writers' reach that this is a laugh-free succession of unappealing sex scenes and leaden filler, topped off with a charmless cast. The only purpose the female characters serve is to jump on Askwith, take off all their clothes, or nag endlessly at the men folk. It should be silly fun, but it's just a load of rubbish.


This film is a national disgrace. This is the cinematic equivalent of the mad relative kept locked in the attic. This film and it's sequels represent the nadir of British film.

Naturally a film this bad has to have a cult following - just check out the number of people who gave it "TEN" - and it's hard not to marvel at just how a film could be so bad. So sit back and watch to see a film worse than you can possibly imagine.


Now this really takes the biscuit. Its a terrible movie with little comedy and the plot is terrible. There is little sex to speak of and when there is its not sexy, its actually funny. 2/10 If you like this movie try: The other rubbish confessions of...series


This contains a spoiler. Stop reading if you don't want to know the only "funny" thing about this flick.

Man, was this a funny movie. When I was 9. Well, not even then, really. The most memorable thing from the whole picture was a !SPOILER! small dog involved in a running gag. The little cur would lower his head and sink his front, then raise his butt in the air. The punchline was delivered via a butt busting fart and clear the area of any hominids by virtue of its nose hair stinging stench.

As originality goes, there are some things that rate higher. Like K-Fed. Well, on second thought, not him.

The acting was very not memorable. The performances did nothing to engender the glowing reminiscence of movies watched when I was a child. They were so unremarkable, as a matter of fact, that I was immediately critical as I walked from the theater. And so, this experience forever changed me. The lesson was: not every pic is a good one.

I suppose that this would help kids who are in the "farts are funny" developmental stage pass a rainy afternoon. Don't expect, as an adult, to be even mildly entertained by this. Unless, of course, you take pride in the ability to belch the alphabet.


I admit some of the quips from the commentators were funny, but I have to disagree with a lot of what is said. For instance, when they ruthlessly make fun of Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)", they say it doesn't make sense - what won't he do? Uh, well, if you listen to the end of the song you'd find out. Sure, some of the songs deserved to be on the list, but many were great songs, and did NOT deserve the trash talk so given by the comedians. It is also inaccurate to call this show "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs...Ever", because after it was released at least a dozen more "awesomely bad songs" appeared on the radio.


This is truly one of THE worst countdowns I have ever seen. These "comedians" couldn't make a funny wisecrack, even if it flew out their butts. Also, the people ripping apart these songs are being some of the most pretentious buttholes I have ever seen on a countdown. To add insult to the injury they make "funny" comments on some rather good songs, such as "Broken Wings" and "I Will Do Anything For Love". They even pick apart songs that actually have a great message, such as that Bette Midler song "Watching Over Us". With such crap mainstream music out today I wonder if they actually listened to some of these songs or just decided to say "hey guys, let's just pick songs at random to build an entire 2 hours by making unfunny comments and trying to say something smart". If you want people picking apart things by actually being funny watch "I Love the 80s", "I Love the 70s", "I Love the 80s Strikes Back", the upcoming "I Love the 90s", or better yet, "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Otherwise skip this piece of crap countdown.


With all of the garbage that is out there today, everything that Chicago did is better than the all of the claptrap of the 1990's or 2000's! All this is is another worthless list from the MTV networks! Any list with no inclusion from me! Is no list at all! But then what do you expect from MTV! Chicago is one of the greatest bands of all time! And for them to be included here is a travesty of justice! This entire list can be occupied by every freaking rap/hip-hop song ever just to start! Then you can include each and every new wave & punk song ever! Then you can included about 97 3/4% of all disco songs ever, not done by the Bee Gees! Then you can include every Britney Spears song and all songs by every Britney wannabe!


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


I see many people liked this show. Well, I'm not one of them. When I was a kid Goosebumps ans Are you afraid of the dark was my favorite shows to watch and it succeeded to entertain me. Eerie Indiana on the other hand, did not. I actually started watching this show with great enthusiasm. The show was down right to silly for my taste. Im not saying Goosebumps wasn't' silly, but EI was silly in a too silly way ;) I'll admit some of the episodes were okay to watch, but most of them just annoyed me.. The plots were just to weird to appreciate and the main characters were WAY to bad actors.. I remember the acting annoyed me, and I was a little kid!


Dolph Lundgren stars as Jason Price a NSA agent who after losing a witness in his protection agency investigates the leak and finds out that there's more then what meets the eye in this mediocre thriller which is definitely a nice looking feature but the plot is just too hard to follow making this for Dolph Lundgren fans who will ignore the plot and just enjoy the action. Still it remains one of Lundgren's better movies in quite awhile.


When I read the synopsis and viewed the trailer for The Living and the Dying I thought it would be a really good movie. Now that I have seen it; it wasn't what I thought it would be. It's what actually transpires after the prison break, so you need an imagination. Right from the start there is enough profanity and blood for ten movies. There are quite a few derogatory statements made against the female gender too. It was just to much, possibly an over kill. I didn't totally trash it because I thought some of the acting was decent and seeing a real SWAT team was pretty cool for a no budget movie. Another reason I didn't give it a low score of 1 because of a short that is on the DVD which in turn was pretty good. I also took into account that the film maker appears to have made a genuine effort in comparison to some of the other no budget trash I have seen.


Ruggero Deodato's Un Delitto poco comune aka Off Balance (1987) is an Italian thriller about a wealthy and happy pianist (Michael York) whose life turns upside down after the doctors find a very rare and lethal disease inside him. He starts to grow older very fast, having only few months to live or so and things turn even darker for him as someone starts to viciously murder those close to him. The plot follows police agent Donald Pleasance's attempts to find the killer before it's too late as well as the pianist's own efforts to return a some kind of balance to his life.

Film maker Ruggero Deodato has made one of the most challenging and important films of all time, Cannibal Holocaust (1979) which tells about rotten media violence and the animal species that consumes it. The film is notorious for its unspeakable acts of carnal violence but none of it is in vain or gratuitous which is way too much for some viewers to understand and admit as most of them can't face themselves on the screen. Deodato has also made pure exploitation trash like the 1980 La Casa sperduta nel parco aka The House at the Edge of the Park or Inferno in diretta aka Cut & Run (1985) both of which are mostly just extremely gratuitously violent but also have at least some thoughts and themes to make them more interesting than other nasty and gory Italian films of the period.

Off Balance is written by Gianfranco Clerici whose other credits include the mentioned masterpiece Cannibal Holocaust with Deodato as well as The House at the Edge of the Park but also Lucio Fulci's sadistic and misogynistic terror tale Lo Squartatore di New York aka The New York Ripper (1982) the last two of which are perfect opposites to the firstly mentioned and its subject matter. Off Balance is easily among their weakest works but, fortunately, has some brain too in addition to blood.

The film has a very promising beginning with the first murder scene taking place during the credits inter-cutting to calm scenes depicting the protagonist play piano in his concert. The film moves fastly from the beginning and the characters and their relations get introduced well too. But ultimately, after the first half or so the film loses its fire and becomes slower with plenty of talk and things that don't make too much sense, mostly involving the killer and his (absent) motives for his vicious acts. I can't name one single explanation for his acts and that is rather frustrating once one has realized that. The things that are discussed in the second part are also interesting and important but they are presented with too much contrast with the more lively first half.

The film's theme about aging and living one's life while it's offered and on hand is of course important and surprisingly well-concentrated on in the script and practically the whole last part is about this and not about the killings anymore. The film tries to make the audience understand how important it is not to let your life pass by without living it, as there may come times in the future that you start regretting it as life after all would have offered something interesting and worth living. It definitely doesn't say life or youth ends when your hair go off but it says that some things should be understood not by experience but for example by other people around us or art depicting these things.

The film works also as a pure giallo thriller as it has its moments of suspense and mystery and of course the graphic blood letting. There are few nasty murders in the film, both at the very beginning and they are definitely very "Italian like" with the huge amount of red color sprayed over the screen. The second one is very close to Dario Argento's style but serves not any other purpose than itself, unlike the great usage of similar effect in Argento's Tenebre (1982) for example. The effects are pretty good and the aging character becomes all the more tragic as we see the horrible face mutations of his in so little time. York does a believable role and never over-acts at all.

Off Balance is more promising and potential than some other films of the giallo/slasher genre and since it's Italian, it could've been so much more than it now is. Deodato and Clerici have once proved to be a very efficient couple but it seems they're ambitions are either not supported by the producers anymore or have just changed a little bit in themselves. 3/10


This very "made for TV" movie drags at a snail's pace, and it really shouldn't at one hour and twenty-seven minutes. Anything of merit can actually be seen in the trailer which heavily uses the 'best', or at least most memorable scene in the film featuring an aged child on a swing. This scene, in the actual film itself, is no longer than the footage seen in the trailer - which, when I viewed it, certainly intrigued me. Don't be fooled.

The acting is hammy, and even compared to something like 'House on the edge of the park' this is mediocre. The quality of image and sound (on the Shameless DVD release) leaves a lot to be desired - but judging from some of the night scenes the quality of film used in the first place was not the best. A cheap shoddy production all round it would seem.

Donald Pleasance does nothing of merit, and York's over-acting grates from a very early stage. Tedious plot padding comes in the shape of pointless ventures to Venice - only to kill a prostitute and moan some more at a priest.

The Italian horror genre can offer so much more than this, so unless you are an extreme completist, don't bother.


Ruggero Deodato...

I hope I'm not bumbing against people's cart when I say that with having just watched PHANTOM OF DEATH his directorial skills somewhat became a bit more questionable again to me. I mean, the man undeniably is a master in depicting 'jungle mayhem', with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST arguably the best cannibal movie ever made (except no substitute - it is actually a very good movie with the most effective set-up I've ever witnessed in such films) and CUT AND RUN, again, one of the best efforts in the genre I've ever seen (and one of my personal favorites). Deodato is at his best anytime he's free to go over the top in any genre (THE BARBARIANS, anyone?)... But put him in the director's seat of a movie that's a bit more serious and demanding on the (international) cast's behalf, and he's bound to slip. As is, in my opinion, the case with PHANTOM OF DEATH.

The Italian title, by the way, doesn't exactly encourage viewers to go see it, so I don't know what the producers were thinking. Literally translated, it means "A crime a little bit common (ordinary)". Sounds a little bit dull, doesn't it? Regardless, the basic synopsis does sound interesting enough: A successful pianist - why exactly a pianist is totally irrelevant; I suspect it was to lend the movie a bit more 'class' - starts suffering from a disease that rapidly ages him. Aside from not being able to cope with this affliction, it also starts affecting his mind and he can't resist the urge to kill women any longer. All this wrapped up in a Giallo-style film. This idea is put to good use in the plot, as his rapid aging makes it quite difficult for the police to determine what the killer looks like.

Further more, Deodato (or the screenplay?) does have a good sense of pacing regarding the unfolding of events and presenting us a necessary killing on regular occasions. The murders are also pretty bloody & squirty, so that's a plus. One killing even has a girl bursting through a glass door in slow motion. But face it, as far as originality goes, Dario Argento had been throwing girls through windows in slow motion since 1977 already. So, nothing too special there either.

But now for the two main things Deodato completely messes up. He has absolutely no clue on how to make an effective transition from one scene to another. And on a few occasions he sometimes even makes the cut from one shot to another look bad. Now, when you're wildly shooting a movie in a jungle, you can get away with that and the audience just doesn't notice it. But when you're shooting a stylish crime thriller and trying to tell a decent story, then you better fine-tune your directing skills in that department too. Deodato just jumps and cuts from one scene to another, including often too short and seemingly pointless scenes. It often results in a character's lines barely having come out of his mouth, and wham-bam cut to a different scenery. Doing it like that, might get you on with the story, but it also causes more than one problem for other aspects of the movie. Some might think I'm nitpicking, and I might be, as in some other movies (pulpy exploitation flicks, for example) I wouldn't point out these things. But you can feel PHANTOM OF DEATH tries to be a bit more ambitions on several levels, so I'm holding these flaws against it. However, the mise-en-scène is more polished than I would have thought. So at least the movie looks good enough.

The other problem I have, is that with a movie of this type, Deodato just can't move his cast to give a decent performance. A given is, of course, that the supporting cast is downright abominable (acting/performance-wise). But it's worse than that. Donald Pleasance looks exhausted and uninspired and I suspect the main cause of this being that he has been given bad material to work with (so not necessarily his age at the time). The dialogue is poor and one scene has him go shamelessly over the top, running into a crowd on a square, shouting stuff like "Where are you? Show yourself, bastard! I kill you! You bastard! I kill you!!!". Very funny, yes. Very sad too. Same goes for Edwige Fenech. She's got her on-screen charisma and looks great. But she has not much to do or say. In the second half of the movie, she basically sits at home all the time being pregnant and waiting for her lover (the killer) to return. Michael York somehow does pull it off on some level, but his character is loaded with so much pathos - man, those scenes when he's talking to the blind dog - that it sometimes becomes painful to watch. And his slow motion death-scene at the end was plain laughable, to put it mildly. Attentive viewers can spot a cameo by Giovanni Lombardi Radice. And no, don't get your hopes up: He doesn't die a painfully bloody death.

But this movie is memorable for at least one scene alone. Freaky & creepy sh!t, I tell ya. Two words as a teaser: Old kid.

And yes, there's female nudity coming from more than one cast member.

Let me end it here by saying that PHANTOM OF DEATH (or OFF BALANCE, as is the title I prefer) is certainly of interest to Giallo fans. It can be enjoyed. But it's not a great movie.


To us horror fans, Euro-horror is the optimum; Portland's video/DVD store Movie Madness even has a section devoted to it. Unfortunately, "Un delitto poco comune" (called "Phantom of Death" in English) has little to show for itself. The plot involves something about a piano player (Michael York) who unwillingly assumes a different identity and goes around committing murders, but the whole movie is poorly strung together and barely goes anywhere. A particularly bad scene is when Donald Pleasance is telling someone something, and then they cut the scene and he finishes the sentence several minutes later! All in all, there are plenty of cool Italian horror flicks (anything by Mario Bava or Dario Argento is right up there). No need to waste your time on this one.


Darwaza Bandh Rakho was touted as a comedy coming from RGV's factory after a string on action/scary movies. Chekravarthy directs this movie and considering his previous ventures (anyone unfortunate enough to view Durga would agree) and the star cast of this one, the expectations were zilch. After watching a lackluster Anthony you anyway don't want to have many expectations from a movie.

The movie is about a gang of four Ajay (Aftab Shivdasani), Goga (Snehal Dabhi), Raghu(Chunky Pandey) and Abbas (Zakir Hussain) who want to make a quick buck. They kidnap a construction magnate's spoilt daughter Isha (Isha Sharvani) and end up in a now-broke Guajarati household taking the family of Kantilal Shah (Ishrat Ali) as hostages. As Isha's father is in US they have to keep put up in the same house. As time passes quite a few characters like a pizza delivery boy Mugale Azam (Nitin Raikwar), shampoo sales girl Julie (Manisha Koirala), money lender Shetty (Jeeva), real estate agent Mehta(Goga Kapoor), constable Ganpat(Ravi Kale), a veterinary doctor (Kota Srinivas Rao) etc turn up and are promptly taken in as hostages. The kidnappers have to keep up with the idiosyncrasies of the hostages till they get the money. In the meanwhile the pizza boy wants to cozy up to them as he always wanted to be in underworld; Raghu takes a liking to Julie whereas Isha takes a liking to Ajay. The kidnappers then try to outsmart one another to get the money for themselves. There is lots of confusion and finally the police arrives to finish the matters.

The story has enough in it to be turned into a laugh riot. Does it succeed in doing so? Yes and No. There are some fantastic one-liners and the acting is good.

Some dialogues that stand out  Only incoming, outgoing cut Only cats, dogs cowsno mans and a couple of others.

But, the cohesiveness in the film is missing. There are so many things that can be done with such a story line and that's where you feel let down. The pace of the movie never slackens. Dialogues are good and have mass appeal. Cinematography is also good.

Acting is one area where there are some revelations. Ishrat Ali is undoubtedly the star of the movie. I have always held that he cannot deliver dialogues but he screams them but here it works and how! This is the best I have seen him perform in spite of seeing him in dozens of movies. Fantastic!

Isha Sharvani is another revelation. Seeing her in Kisna I had remarked she is good for doing mallahkambh maybe and not acting Here she does really well as a kid who is excited about being kidnapped.

Aftab is lackluster, Chunky and Snehal are OK whereas Manisha looks uninterested in the going on. Zakir is good. Divya Dutta as the maid is as usual. Among the supporting cast Kota Srinivas Rao stands out.

Chekravarthy's direction shows improvement over his debut film. He has handled some scenes well but has still a long way to go.

Overall the movie is time pass if you go with less expectation. After all movie-watching is a matter of managing your expectations. I think here also you are better off waiting for a few months by when this should be coming on channels.

PS: The movie was touted as 35 people under one roof, believe it or not I counted the number of people in the house and they never reached 35!! In the climax when a gang of people reach the house and following them is a police team it might have neared 35 that's it and for most of the movie it is 15 people.


DARWAZA BANDH RAKHO is Chakravarthi's 2nd directional film after the flop DURGA and a small story in DBR

The film is a comedy fitted in 1 house which is novel but sadly the film falters as it progresses

The film starts off well but several comedy scenes are dragged and too chaostic

Yet there are several interesting scenes but the romance could be done without The film gets engrossing in the second half where lot of game plans are revealed but the climax is a bad joke

Direction by Chakravarthi is decent Camera-work is good

Aftab Shivdasani is in good form and acts his part very well though he doesn't get much scope to display histrionics Isha Sherwani annoys at places otherwise she is good Chunky Pandey is relegated to the backseat, Manisha Koirala is okay Snehal Dabbi is adequate Zakir is superb in his role Ishrat Ali is the scene stealer, he excels in his comic act He mostly is seen as a loud politician in action films but here he is superb Smita Jaikar and others are good


Reading the comments written so far I must have missed something as I found "40" to be one of the worst channel four programmes I've ever seen. The story was incomprehensible and totally unbelievable. As for some of the acting and dialogue, I couldn't believe what I was hearing, it was pitiful. It made "Neighbours" seem like Shakespeare! I know we're a bit spoilt with brilliant shows like "The Sopranos", "Six Feet Under" and "The West Wing" but this was not up to broadcasting standards and should have been left well on the shelf. (0/10)


this movie was about as flat as an opened 2 liter bottle of, um, nuka-cola. i mean, i didn't expect much going in and i was unpleasantly unsurprised. the characters in the movie weren't too endearing and a lot of the dialog (all 6 or so lines of it) sounded pretty forced. the main character seemed to have this big hamlet thing going on throughout the movie and i totally didn't buy into it. also, you know how plot twists are supposed to make you think "wow, i totally didn't expect that!" and be shocked? well, in this movie when that stuff happened i just shook my head--most of the time they didn't have any diegetic justification for their plot twists--and rolled my eyes.


With "Bastard Boys" I don't think the makers truly set out to be so one sided, they simply only see one side as the "truth" despite the fact that the reality is much more complex.

For those not familiar with the story portrayed in this mini series, it involves Patrick Stevedores controversial sacking of its entire workforce (of mostly union members) and replacing them with non unionised workers.

This wasn't a very good thing to do, but what "Bastard Boys" fails to do is point out the extenuating circumstances that led to this extreme course of action. The Australian waterfront had been virtually held to ransom for years with one of the lowest lift-rates of any OECD nation, workers with "go slow" policies in order to gain valuable overtime rates, but which miraculously disappeared when the right hands were greased, and a unhelpful union intent on waging an "us vs them" battle of ideology against any sort of attempt to change a status quo that wasn't working.

Bastard Boys completely failed to portray Chris Corrigan (head of Patrick) as anything other than a weird loner. We didn't see him at his wits end, unable to do anything about the lack of productivity that was costing his company a fortune. We didn't see all the rubbish he had to put up with from the union. We just saw unionists and union officials playing happy families and horrified at their "unwaranted" mistreatment.

This miniseries should have been about how union and employer couldn't work together to resolve an obvious issue, so extreme (and yes, wrong) actions were taken. Instead Patrick's and Corrigan are demonised and the unions and sacked workers are painted as pariahs. The series should have pointed out that years after this dispute, the lift rates which the unions so flatly condemned as unsafe and impossible were being achieved by the very same workers who were fired once they had been reinstated.

Bastard Boys should have been about how this whole incident could have been avoided if everyone just worked together, instead of turning into another preachy bit of political revisionism and selective history which only shows one side of the debate.

Bastard Boys should have been about how the workers, the unions AND Patrick's did the wrong thing, and how after all this fuss it was worked out in the end. Fuss that could have been avoided.


Borderline entertaining television, but anyone who doesn't think the union movement in Australia is The Bees Knees is going to be irritated. The Australian waterfront has always been a complete shambles and this series - no real shock that is comes from the ABC - is almost entirely told from the trade union perspective.

This would have been far better if we saw a balanced side of this dispute, rather than a rehash which will have all the armchair socialists and unionists nodding sagely from their living room, without ever getting down to the nub of the issue.

Poor form by the ABC.


Sailing from the United States to London, chivalrous Leslie Fenton (as Barry Wilding) saves pretty Muriel Evans (as Julie Kenmore) from the advances of brutish Matty Kemp. The lady is grateful, but rejects Mr. Fenton's more mannered advances. After debarking, Fenton learns he has inherited a deceased uncle's estate. But, when he visits his mansion, Fenton is chased off the property, by interloping inhabitants. Surprisingly, Ms. Evans (the woman he saved on the ship) is among the uninvited tenants. During the running time, you go from wondering what's happening in "The House of Secrets", to indifference. Fenton and a good cast, including pal Sidney Blackmer (as Tom Starr), try to keep it simmering.

**** The House of Secrets (10/28/36) Roland D. Reed ~ Leslie Fenton, Muriel Evans, Sidney Blackmer


12year old Mitsuko is a student at her Father (Gozos) school. She is also the object of his perverse sexual gratification. Gozo locks her inside a cello case and makes her watch him and her mother during their sexual congress. Eventually, Taeko, the mother is persuaded to trade places; she now watches from within as Gozo rapes his daughter. The abuse continues at home and at the school Mitsuko attends where Gozo is headmaster. The dynamic of this malignant relationship is such that Taeko becomes jealous of her daughter and proceeds to physically abuse her whenever Gozo is away. During one particularly frenzied attack, Taeko slips and falls downstairs breaking her neck. Now Mitsuko is co-opted into the role of wife and, unable to endure the unending cycle of abuse, attempts suicide by jumping from a building. Although she survives the fall, she is now confined to a wheelchair. Gozo now sates his rapacious sexual appetite with a string of prostitutes, openly having sex in front of his paralysed daughter. The veracity Mitsukos horrific ordeal is challenged when, the possibility is raised that these events are fictional; taken from the manuscript of a controversial horror authors latest book. The latter part of this movie confronts the viewer with the questions; Who is the author? Where is Gozo? What has become of Mitsuko? The answers to these questions lie in the damaged and fragmented minds of the players. Ultimately, there is a reckoning, with a cruel vengeance brought upon those responsible. I see this movie as being an allegory of the disintegration of Japanese society. Sion Sono returns to themes of loss of personal and group identity first covered in Suicide Club However, I believe that Norikos Dinner Table is his most coherent treatment of alienation and atomisation driven by westernisation Having watched this movie and having sat through the seemingly never-ending making of documentary (where the director provides no insight into his intention except, (he States in the opaque documentary of the making of this movie) 'to make a beautifully grotesque spectacle', my take is that Sion Sono vision is flawed. I get the allegory, I get the beautiful grotesqueness but I cannot accept the imagery of child sexual abuse as portrayed here. In many peoples minds child abuse is a taboo subject, and, rather like the way that the phrase 911 has become iconic, the subject of child abuse, particularly child sexual abuse has become a metaphor for the most unimaginably awful thing that can happen to a human being. This is of course, not the case. The worst thing that can happen to a human being is death, but, as children we point our finger at a playmate we say Bang! and death has now become a metaphor for Game Over, so now, when a filmmaker reaches into their bag of handy shocks there is little left. except for the depiction of children being used for sexual gratification. In the depiction of the abuse. The sexual abuse of children is surprisingly commonplace. As well as my own experience of abuse, it is a sad fact that as I get older, I discover that many of my friends and loved ones have endured abuse.

In reality, children enduring abuse, have voices, they share their fears and hopes with a favourite doll, they cry to their teddy bears, they pray to Harry Potter, They pray to Hello Kitty. This is too raw a nerve to be touched upon by this director, instead, Mitsuko is objectified to little more than an icon; we do not hear her thoughts, we do not bear true witness to the bleakness of her soul. There is some vague voice-over about her home and school being littered with traps but this sounds more like a statement taken from the script notes rather than A genuine voice. I believe that Sion Sono does a great disservice to genuine survivors of abuse when he presents Mitsuko in such a simplified manner. I therefore can not, in all conscience recommend this movie


This movie is about a young girl who is the victim of (violent and gory) parental abuse. Later the story focuses on the female writer of the girl's stories who may or may not have been involved with them personally.

Incoherent and haphazard scenes have been thrown in to suggest flashbacks between reality and fantasy. Plenty of blood and blood-stained interiors have been used to heighten the drama without achieving this aim and becoming comical. Weak acting, weak scenario, emphasis on unnecessary gory scenes unrelated to the plot. Cannot recommend this film.


The great Welles only total failure. the film lacks humanity,it lacks poetry and above all it lacks interest. Welles creates a world where Macbeth is pawn of the supernatural,not a good man who is influenced by a prophecy and an ambitious wife. and speaking of the ambitious wife can anyone have given a more wooden performance of the greatest female role ever written? Jeannette Nolan is awful. not passion,no emotion. she seems life a cartoon villain. she can't even move well on screen! the only performance worth mentioning is Roddy McDowall's understated Malcom. his is the only unaffected portrayal in this disheatening film.


I thought I could never find a completely bad movie. Well, I found it. It's this movie. This has to be the' worst movie ever made. Everyone over acts, there is no flow to the movie. Shakespeare will role over his grave every time someone sees this ruined version. I strongly recommend not seeing this movie.


When people say "skip this and go straight to End of Evangelion", they actually mean it.

I love Evangelion but this movie is a waste of time and money. I bought it at HMV in the summer and bought it because I owned the series on DVD and TEoE.

I was excited and I nearly shat myself because it said "107 Minutes", and I thought it was a movie, and it had an 18A rating (I'm from Canada, mind you). I bought it and rushed home with the DVD, taking it out of the silver slipcase and frantically taking it out of the package and putting it in the DVD player.

What a waste of time!!!!! This is basically The series recapped in 45 minutes, followed by the first 20 minutes of TEoE. The minute I saw the opening scene from TEoE, I went "wait... are you sure I bought the right movie?". 20 minutes into that part, I just turned it off.

Either way I find this negativity sad, because I really did like the series. I really did. I also saw The End of Evangelion and loved it to death, and I think if I had seen The End of Evangelion before this I would have liked it more, however that does NOT change a thing.

I dunno about you, but right now I'm halfway into REALLY getting sick of the whole story. I mean, The creepy "Angels", the forgettable protagonist, the girl he's after and all that other stuff... aren't they beginning to get a little... erm... boring ? I mean, really, the only original part of the movie is in the "Rebirth" section, which can easily be found in TEoE.

This is a waste of time and money, and the only reason to see is is for the "Director's Cut" stuff (But not like there's a whole lot, there's only 2 seconds of it in total).

So this is basically my first Spoiler-free review, because really there's nothing at all to spoil. NO, this will NOT help if you haven't seen the show, and NO, the 45-minute flashback (snarl) will not help, either.

Avoid like the plague! Or only see it if you have a burning desire to find out what happened to Asuka in the series.


Having seen episodes 5 and 6 from my local library (And also some scattered episodes from when I was small), I decided to pick this one up as well, thinking it was the End of Evangelion (It was wrongly labeled by the library, despite how obvious it wasn't from the big words DEATH AND REBIRTH on the cover). What I got, however, was a rushed and complicated mess of scattered scene after scattered scene. Having not seen much of the series, I was left asking myself "What the heck just happened?". I had no idea who most of the characters were and I couldn't pick up even the slightest idea of the plot.

And that's just the start. Then, you have 20 minutes of EoE. The first scene is more messed up than a raving maniac and from there follows extreme sadistic violence. Don't be fooled, Australians, by its M-rating (as well as EoE)-it's more explicit than it sounds.

To finish, don't watch this unless you've seen all the episodes of Evangelion up to Episode 24. If you don't, you'll be left more confused than I was.


"Cliff's Notes" of the series. Not a new chapter, not a new side plot, just a distillation. Despite being a redux there are long silences. It frankly spoiled the series for me. It felt more like an essay than a movie; rather than chronological development it was as though a point was made and evidenced and then moved on to the next point - I much preferred the chronological growth of the characters in the series. I do not feel like I understand a single part of the series any better. In fact, this feels like the "bonus features" pointlessly added to "new editions" just to entice me to buy the latest "collectable" version of a movie. In short, I want my money back. Don't waste your time. Watch the series before you watch this "movie." If you've seen the series, watch something else before you watch this "movie."


All that this film is, is a 45 minute rehash of the series and an (edited) first 15-20 minutes of End of Evangelion.

End of Evangelion is the real movie in this series, and it is VERY worth your time.

This isn't


This is a cut and paste film made up of bits of the original series which I have not seen. If you are not familiar with the series this is not a good way of getting into it as it leaves you extremely confused and frustrated with the random parts of story lines crammed into the duration of this film, the sequel,"the end of evangelion" is fantastic only wish I could have seen the series first rather than this released, for the sake of making money, film.


Given the people involved and the unusual, creepy Angus Oblong source material, this show had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it became just another watered-down, bland sit-com full of the same tired sitcom plots and devices we've seen since the 1950s. Uninspired and neutered, the show rapidly became boring.

Such a shame, and an almost total waste of Ferrell, Smart, and Adlon.

For some reason, the show's producers almost entirely abandoned the macabre theme of the source and turned it into a "wacky, lovable oddballs make their way in an unfair world" cliché party.

Angus Oblong's work is worth a look, but not in this show. Angus Oblong only has one producer credit and only has writing credits for one episode (the first one, probably) so all indications are that he sold out creative control.

It shows. This program was nothing special, which is why it's gone.


I didn't understand this movie. Too many cuts in the cinematography made it difficult to watch and comprehend. It does have a nightmarish quality to, although I feel that the fright factor could have have been better. More attention should have been paid to the more important characters instead of dwelling on the minor ones. Better dialogue would have improved this movie tenfold.


Wow, I can recall this movie when it came out, but never did get a chance to see it. Now I have and it is nothing to write home about. It's not a bad movie, just kinda bland and some moments very incongruous. To me, it looks like a TV movie of the week. The cinematography is adequate, the script inconsequential. The best part of it is the full roster of character actors (including the fabulous Kenneth Mars, Ted Cassidy from "The Addams Family" as well as two, count 'em two former Bond villain henchmen.) chowing down on the scenery like it was their last meal. The leads are cute and all, but as actors they only vaguely adequate at playing themselves. It's a testament to their bubbly personalities that they shine, despite the weaker than weak script. How weak is it? In one scene, when Donny is pointing out to Marie someone who might have been one of the criminals chasing them in an earlier scene, she says she can't see them because she's not wearing her glasses? HUH?? She can't need glasses too much, because she wasn't wearing them for the whole movie. Heck, she manages to ride her motorcycle while being chased by baddies without wearing glasses. Also, not sure why they had her on a motorcycle, that was a little odd. Mostly, this is an excuse to have them singing and dancing on stage. Perfectly fine, no harm, no foul.

I have no ax to grind, I was a huge fan of them back in the day, but this film has not aged at all well. I'd say it's family fare, but I doubt any children are really going to care about this movie. I'd say this is only for nostalgic adults, and even then I can't really recommend it. I don't regret having seen it, but I don't have any desire to see it again.


I saw this movie when it came out in the theaters and I was a fan of the Donnie & Marie Show...However, even though I was only 15 when I saw it, I was shocked and disappointed at how bad this film was. It was so bad, I was embarrassed for them and I walked out of the movie half way through.


I'm a Tesla fan from way back, and have seen better documentaries. Some of the facts are shown, but far more could have been done. For example, Marconi, often credited with the first radio transmissions, didn't accomplish it until several years after Tesla demonstrated a radio controlled model boat. That's a far more complex radio transmission and control circuit than Marconi's. This fact is glossed over quickly, leaving the viewer with the impression Marconi's achievement was better. Marconi did something great, too, but it was Tesla's theories that got him there.

The story drags and isn't helped by the wooden acting of Peter Bozovic as Tesla. At times, it almost looks like a high school play being filmed. In the middle of the movie is an out of place scene where he figures out AC current and generation, which is good, but they're speaking German, no subtitles. And it's after he's already demonstrated an AC generator and built a powerhouse at Niagra Falls! The DVD also looks like it was copied from a VHS tape, rather dark, and about three quarters of the way through, the movie suddenly backs up about 15 seconds like someone accidentally hit the fast rewind button, then goes back to play. A real professionally made product! Strother Martin tries to make the best of a bad script, as does Orson Welles, but they're just isn't much there. The extras are a documentary made in Russia, in Russian, no subtitles.

A better documentary is Nikola Tesla, the genius who lit the world.


Dice Rules- Zero Stars I was about to write my review of Dice Rules, I couldn't come up with anything to write. This movies was very ugly and terrible. What was Andrew Dice Clay thinking when he decided to film this inexcusable piece of garbage. The first thirty minutes of the film is nothing but pointless "comedy" sketches which makes Eddie Murphy's Raw opening sketch look like Casablanca and thats a good thing. There is nothing funny about viewing women as sexual objects. Fear of women is common for Clay. Word of advice, keep it secret and don't exploit are minds with it. Now the MPAA gives the NC-17 rating to movies that don't deserve them like Last Tango In Paris and Y Tu Mama Tambien but Dice Rules deserves that rating and I hope the MPAA doesn't change their minds about it. This movie is sick twisted and one of the worst movies of the 1990's.


DICE RULES is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It isn't even a movie. I don't like Andrew Dice Clay as a comedian. He is not clever, funny, interesting, creative, or daring. He just picks on different groups of minorities. He obviously hates women. He doesn't seem to see them as anything other than servants and sex tools. Why is this considered funny? I think George Carlin and Lenny Bruce are funny as hell. Why doesn't Andrew Dice Clay work? Because he is exploitative, mean spirited, and doesn't understand why what he is saying is simply wrong. He seems to hate everybody but himself. The audience of his skits are scary as hell. They look like an army of criminals with their fists thrusting upward and chanting his name as if they had practiced to chant it in perfect succession beforehand. This is one of the depressing films I've ever seen and I definitely don't recommend this film to anybody. I don't even want to meet somebody who finds this to be funny, although I already have numerous times. DICE RULES is complete crap.

Pros:

-none

Cons:

-bad comedy

-crude

-rude

-mean-spirited


Whoa, this was awful. I felt like I had stumbled into a supremacist rally or something.

It starts with a brainless run of dumb skits where Andrew Dice Clay inexplicably apes Jerry Lewis (and I don't even like Jerry Lewis, so a cheap takeoff from a comic that specializes in tasteless misogyny is not my idea of a good time). After a half hour of torturous abysmal skititude, more difficult to watch than anything in the 4 1/2 hours of La Roue, we finally get to the comedy, which is occasionally amusing but is far too much pure, unadulterated, troublesome and hateful woman-bashing, with a Nuremberg rally cheering him on.

And that's the main issue one would have. Where someone like Stephen Colbert is playing an satirically extreme version of a character he may disagrees with, the audience is in on the joke. They know he's not really an extremist right-winger making crazy statements, they get the wink. Andrew Dice Clay is closer to someone like Larry the Cable Guy, a comedian who plays a character, a redneck, that his background does not compute with (his early performances are more akin to Jay Leno). But where the Cable Guy is merely opportunistically taking the money of redneck people who think he speaks for them, Dice is a bit more worrisome. Where Larry can make a redneck smile when he sees the couch on his lawn, it's hard to shake the idea that that same redneck is going to some home from a Dice Clay show and, y'know, beat his wife.

Now, far be it for me to penalize a performer for the audience he has who doesn't get the joke, but in this case, he's not misunderstood, he's not ignorant of this effect. He's completely, fully aware of what he's doing, of the kind of people he's playing to, and how seriously they take his work. Even the lines that are occasionally amusing, there's always a cringe as you know that some woman is getting punched in the face with every 'ow!" Every shot of the men in the crowd, they're not laughing as much as pumping their fists. Every shot of a woman in the crowd is not one of laughter or genuine amusement, but more like they've got egg on their face, like they can't believe he said that, or that, or that, and they're worried that they're getting kicked in the stomach when they get home as her husband obsessively repeats his nursery rhymes and calls her a pig and a baboon. It's a man who has a fear of women, playing to a crowd that is even more fearful.

It's funny, there's nothing lazier than a Nazi comparison when it's something you don't like, but for once, the comparison is eerily sensible. The crowd is enraptured by a man preaching hate speech, satirical or not, and you know that the predominantly white, male crowd is the kind of people who are given all the chances in the world, but fail because they're idiots, and instead choose to blame every minority they can think of: women, the handicapped, women, the Japanese, women, the sick, women, midgets, and of course, women. So they go, and he validates every irrational fear they have, and he's the embodiment of cool for them, so they listen and repeat everything he says, and you get the feeling that if he told the crowd to assault the women in the audience, and added enough "ow!"s and "bada-bing"s, not a woman would leave the building.

There's a lot of great, genre-bending, taboo-breaking genius comedians, but Andrew Dice Clay, if he is a satirist, has the bad misfortune of being too damn convincing. Every now and then, he says, "don't take this too seriously, it's all a goof", akin to what Eminem occasionally pulls during his fits of rage. But where songs like "Kill You" are akin to Andrew Dice Clay, he makes it very clear that he's putting out his frustrations in song instead of in person, and where he is cartoonishly extreme (for instance, "As the World Turns" begins with him attempting to assault a woman at a laundromat, and ends with her eating his leg and his "go-go gadget..."). Instead, Andrew Dice Clay is just extreme. Eminem, even at his worst, is brilliantly lucid, he is witty, clever, he makes jokes, splendid turns of phrase, and by his second album, was pushing buttons to push buttons, and the only people that got mad were people that missed the joke. Here, the people who missed the joke...are his biggest supporters. The Diceman has no quality in his construction. He has no tact, no skill, and worst, doesn't even tell jokes. He just says "Women make me mad, I hate them, and they're only good for sex." Hardy-har indeed.

Michael Richards was shunned for one random (and completely misunderstood) outburst, said in a fit of pique. Andrew Dice Clay, thankfully, has also been blackballed in the industry, but instead of one random moment of anger, he built an entire career out of it, and by the 20-minute mark, I felt uncomfortable, like I had accidentally tapped into a white power forum.

I bet Kramer is angry.

{Grade: 0/10 (F)}


Watching this embarrassing spectacle was a reminder that the dumbing-down didn't start just yesterday with Paris Hilton's generation. Clay is unfunny and primitive to the bone, hence no wonder the crowds looked like as if every single American gas-station attendant and janitor had been flown to the gig to watch their one and only hero spit out nursery rhymes that any 8-grader could top given just ten minutes and a paper and a pencil.

The humour is beyond sophomoronic: it is utterly predictable and cheap. I'm one of the biggest proponents of political incorrectness in comedy, but being solely un-PC does not a good comedian make. The material, I am convinced, was specifically/intentionally targeted at the country's lowest demographics, and by that I mean the lowest IQs, people with the lowest education levels, even physical appearances. I've seen more intelligent/better-looking crowds at TV evangelist mass prayers. Watching a bunch of moronic riff-raff recite Clay's infantile rhymes was like sneaking a peak at your typical day at a school for the mentally-challenged.

Besides, making fun of invalids is not only downright pathetic, but the easiest thing anyone could possibly do. It's like stealing candy from a baby. Hence those "gags" were the worst. "Ha-ha, those midgets, they're so short, see!" It's amazing that even the most bird-brained truck-driver would find this amusing...

Clay hasn't even got half the charisma necessary to pull off any of these cretinous jokes. In fact, to get away with such ultra-inferior material, he'd have to be 20 Eddie Murphys and Dana Carveys rolled into one.


This movie really sucked. And I even like Andrew Dice Clay. Some other comments deplored his misogyny, but you have to understand that that is Clay's shtick. Clay was one of a long line of shock comics. Having said all that, this film was awful. The lead-up to the concert was not remotely funny, and the concert itself just wasn't funny (and I know Clay can be funny).


The film opens with several embarrassingly puerile skits featuring the "Dice man". It then moves to his sold-out stand-up concert, where his monologues are alternately explicitly crude, arrogant, racist, and sexist. One or two lines were amusing, the rest of the film is almost (but not quite) as bad as Martin Lawrence's horrible stand-up film YOU SO CRAZY.

*1/2 out of ****.


Is the Dice-Man funny? No.

Funny enough to warrant an in-concert movie? Definitely not.

And this is the movie that proves it.

"Dice Rules" is one of the absolute lowest points in American motion pictures since they decided to let Burgess Meredith do a nude scene in "Such Good Friends". But at least THAT was funny.

Andrew "Dice" Clay has been called a lot of things in his life, I'm sure, but when he was called "a comedian", I'm also sure that was said with condescending laughter, snickers and Bronx cheers aplenty.

Nothing he says here is funny, nothing he does here is funny, and the only debatable part of this whole self-destructive exercise was watching him get beaten up and verbally abused by every person he comes across in that little opening film he did before the concert starts.

He overcame though, darn it.

And the material (if that's what you can call it) is basically picking on the handicapped, the elderly, birds (yeah, you heard me), sexual practices, homosexuals and women. Oh, those poor women. What he says about women here should get him 20 to life for verbal rape.

The fact that an entire auditorium full of people (Madison Square Garden!) cheered and laughed with him. This is a sick, SICK world we live in.

Look, similar material has been done by the likes of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and even Sam Kinison but they all had a grace, they knew the moves as well as the music. Dice is tone deaf. He has no grace, no talent and not one respectful bone in his big, lumbering body. This entire film smacks of desperation. If you have the misfortune to watch it, you'll no doubt agree.

Don't roll this "Dice"; it'll come up snake eyes.

No stars, none whatsoever. If they ever decide to do the reprogramming like they did in "A Clockwork Orange", I elect Clay.

Now THAT would be something I'd pay to see.


You might need the help of a bottle of rum to make it through this overwrought, overly long, sanitized pirate saga.

This film should have been and could have been exciting with some major tweaking. Bad casting was a large part of it's problem.

For starters, I would have made Blackbeard the central male character of the film, and he would have had a romance with the heroine.

I would have had Blackbeard played by a young, exciting actor - such as Naveen Andrews. Instead, Blackbeard, whose beard by the way, was rather odd looking, being so long and narrow, was played by Angus Macfadyen.

Mr. Macfadyen is a middle-aged man who is fighting a middle-age spread and who looked as if he belonged in an recliner chair in front of a TV set far more than he belonged on a pirate ship.

The male lead, Robert Maynard, was played by Mark Umbers. He was all right, but not handsome or exciting enough.

And while I greatly admired the heroine, Charlotte's spunk (Jessica Chastain),she was no shrinking violet - the woman didn't hesitate to use a gun or a knife - she was so homely, she could have stopped a clock at midnight on a moonless night.

There was scenery chewing aplenty, along with a lot of action on the high seas, and no doubt quite a bit of historical inaccuracy. Certainly more than a bit of unrealistic happenings.

They go in search of Captain Kidd's treasure - find it - and then I'll be darned if they don't go in search of it again. That part was completely murky. Did Captain Kidd have more than one hidden treasure? Was the first one Captain Kidd's and the second one some other treasure? I don't know and I didn't even care enough to try to figure it out.

4 stars out of 10.


The central thing about Yeelen, is the fact that it is the one of the few films that actually tackles the hard topic of the importance and power of symbolism of the "African Mystery System". However, whereas the film starts out by explaining the importance of the "pillars" in ancient Mali society, subsequently the director fails to explain that the "magic" is a metaphor for something more real.

For those who don't know, and I am not sure the director understands this, the "magic pillars" in the film are actually metaphors for government power and operations in ancient Africa. The movie makes them out to be magical, which perhaps is a popular shorthand used in African discourse...but in the end fails to "take us backstage" as a way of demystifying African discourse.

The same pillar system of symbolism was used in Egypt and was later adopted by Christians and as well the Freemasons...and the movie should have tried harder to reveal the real reason and thinking behind the symbolism and magic. The movie only deals with the power metaphors concerning the pillars as if they were magical properties only.

I thought that the treatment of the characters, their discourse and social relations, was beautiful and authentic...and in fact unmatched by any of the usual Hollywood fare. American film makers could learn a lot watching Yeelen. Most contemporary African movies, influenced by American and European film, tend to be misleading in their interpretation of African community relations.

However, the director deliberately complicates the film when, by trying to achieve suspense, he keeps viewers guessing about the chronology of events, drops new characters into scenes without introducing them, only for you to discover the identity of the characters several scenes later. This is very distracting.

Moreover, many extras overact, and sometimes the tempo and rhythm of the film is off (partly an editing problem perhaps). But not just the extras. There is a really weak scene in the film, where the main character is fleeing through the savanna is badly acted...and badly edited. It could have used a night scene and a scene showing a desperately thirsty and hungry fugitive scouring for water. Instead, the character encounters no real hardship even though he is appears to be staggering around ineffectually, and even appears to outrun people on horses who catch him supposedly trying to steal cows? Really odd and ineffective scene. I would have cut it out altogether.

What the film does have that works incredibly well, is that it tells a powerful and complicated story, and succeeds in simplifying it. The landscapes in the film are breathtaking.

A bigger budget for choreography and sets would have resolved some of the weaknesses. For example, the war scenes involved only dozens of people...what if there had been hundreds or thousands of extras, decked out in authentic ancient African military gear? Or if the king actually had a court and palace, as was indeed the case in ancient Mali, instead of sitting under a tree?

Thanks, Kashagama


It's surprising to see the number of rave reviews for this movie. As someone who is passionate and open-minded about all types of foreign cinema, I thought this movie was absolutely horrible with no redeeming value whatsoever.

Not only was it overly long, but it seemed like the director only had a budget of $10 to film what turned out to be nothing more than a meandering, incoherent, pointless piece of drivel masquerading as high art. This movie barely has any plot and NO characterization whatsoever. Sadly, the only memorable thing in the movie is scenes of actual animals being killed, which is terrible.

If, as other reviewers here have said this is how Africans see themselves, then is it any surprise African films don't get much exposure in the world market of cinema?

I also completely disagree with the reviewer who said that people with long attention spans will enjoy this movie. It's more like anybody who's accustomed to such basic cinematic elements as story or character development will not enjoy "Yeelen" as it features neither.

For a far superior film from a similar region in Africa, I would highly suggest Ousmane Sembene's "Moolaadé" from 2004. It too is filmed from an African perspective rather than a Western one...but it actually has a relevant, engaging storyline with fleshed-out characters for whom you actually care.

"Yeelen" on the other hand, is an excruciating, mind-numbing experience that I wouldn't even inflict on my worst enemy. It's as enjoyable as watching urine dry on a toilet seat.


I appreciate the effort behind YEELEN. It is certainly different. The film is a folktale complete with lots of magic and simplistic outdoor sets. It literally looked as if the director went into the semi-desert countryside and filmed this legend using whatever villagers he could find. The sets and acting were very natural and the monsters/spirits were people wearing simple costumes inspired by traditional tribal paints and masks. My problem with the film is that it is less a MOVIE in the Western sense, but more like the work of a ethnologist or sociologist filming a tribal folktale. So, this is important as a preserved record of their culture, but honestly, to me it became awfully dull and ponderous after a while. You really need to have a strong motivation to watch this and can overlook the slapped together quality of the film.


After watching two of his films (the other being INNOCENCE), I simply cannot understand why Paul Cox is such an acclaimed director. I find his work uninspiring, wooden and dull. Lonely HEARTS is an insipid, slow, disjointed and uninteresting story. It is not a love story; there is no spark between the two principal characters. Things happen in the film without any explanation. The acting is average at best. The script is utterly empty. How did this win Australia's equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Picture?? Comes off as a second-rate TV movie.

I now see two recurring themes in these Paul Cox films: keyboard skills and rebound. INNOCENCE: an organist hops into the sack with his old girlfriend because he misses his deceased wife. LONELY HEARTS: a piano tuner hits the dating scene after his mother dies. I do not know what Mr. Cox's reasons are for using these themes but, from any angle, he is not a good storyteller.


In short, this was a slow, measured study of a romance between dull dysfunctional characters. Without giving anything away (there is not a lot to give away, I'm afraid), we watch older characters try to have a relationship in spite of their dysfunctions. Admittedly, this type of slow moving study is probably my least favorite genre.

However, it was well acted and the story ernest. I totally believed the characters were boring and had personal problems. The problem is that I wouldn't want to watch them.

Not my cup of tea, anyway.


I agree and disagree with all 9 reviews (to this point) on this flick to differing extents.

This was by no means a classic movie. It barely would be considered a good movie. But I did watch it and I don't regret my decision to do so.

Possible spoiler....

The crazy twist ending does leave a little to be desired. A mental patient who 'died' and a weird mental patient outwitting the crazy rapist doctor? I know you have to be crazy to rape your patients, but the nutty patients outwitting the doctor? I had issues believing that.

For the record, I liked the post credits little ending.


A Troll in Central Park is not a terrible film. It's just extremely sweet and innocent and this world isn't ready for it. Anyone over six years of age will be embarrassed to watch this - even alone - but that's more of a societal problem. But there are definitely reasons to see this. The animation is amazing, particularly with the children. It's realistic but somehow completely believable in an animated world. And their movements are so fluid and realistic. You can tell every action was acted out and studied meticulously. I really wish this was done more often. The environments also look amazing, especially when the human world comes into play. As for the cute or humorous sidekicks, that's another story entirely. It's probably just a personal bias, but I hate the way Don Bluth designs his more cartoon-y characters. Their personalities aren't any better, ranging from "cute" to marshmallow-peep-flavored-vomit "cute".

Anyone who loved The Secret of NIMH will be shocked to see this film. I mean, how can the same guy who made a progressive, dark and outstanding film be responsible for this? The story is very fairy-tale esquire, like a children's storybook come to life. The villains are more humorous than threatening, the characters spontaneously break into song and dance and everything is whitewashed with cuteness. This is the result of Don Bluth finally giving in to the pressures of Disney, trying to replicate their formula, losing his identity in the process and ultimately falling flat. Luckily, Anastasia would be a healthy step up. But for fans of Bluth's one-hit wonder, it's kind of depressing.


As a kid I loved most of Don Bluth's work, they were original, and had plenty of dark elements to them. But if I had to pick which was his worst film, easily it's A Troll in Cental Park.

The plot execution is as generic as you can get, a troll with magical powers is different from the others, he leaves and finds two kids, one of them doesn't believe in the supernatural, and they embark on some kind of adventure which leads to them fighting against the troll's mother, a tyrannical troll queen.

This film reunites An American Tale voice actors Phillip Glasser and Dom De Luise, sadly they're wasted and their chemistry just doesn't work like it did in their American Tale days, not at all. Cloris Leachman, love her or hate her, is a great actress but her she just overacts her whole performance.

Honestly, I saw this movie only once or twice as a kid and it bored me to death and I just didn't feel engaged by it, just not at all. Not to mention some scenes made me cringe, like the whole "Gus is crying" scenario, just unbearable.

Still though, the animation is beautiful, but it doesn't make up for how many faults are in the film.

Don Bluth's done better, but this was just embarrassing.


This has to be one of the most pointless and boring animated feature films of all time. Don Bluth had directed some stinkers in the past, but this was by far the worst. By the end of the movie, it feels like nothing happened. The animation is a step down from Bluth's previous films, and the character designs and animation are just terribly loose. The only real positives about this are the voice over acting, and the lively musical score, despite only having bad songs.

Stanley the troll (Dom Deluise) is unlike the other trolls. He's more interested in planting flowers and making the world pretty, where the other trolls only want to cause misery. The trolls have black thumbs that turn things to stone, but Stanley has a green thumb for bringing plants to life. When Queen of the trolls, Gnorga (Cloris Leachman), finds out about Stanley being a good troll, she shoots him up in the air, and he lands in Central Park. Meanwhile, a little boy Gus wants his dad to take him to the park, but his dad is busy, so he and his infant sister Rosie go off on their own. They meet Stanley, and go on a stupid adventure with him, while Gnorga is hot on their tail, and for some reason wants them all out of the picture.

Babies will probably have a good time watching this, though some parts may be too scary. Older kids will despise this, unless it has a nostalgia factor to them, which it does to me, and I still hate it. Everything is overly corny, and cheesy and sappy. The plot....heck, what plot. It's pretty much just, little boy and girl go to park, meet troll, he teaches them about imagination, bad troll comes in, chaos ensues. The songs in the movie are really bad, which is weird because the musical score is quite pretty. The voice over acting is actually pretty good, with Cloris Leachman in an almost unrecognizable voice over role, Charles Nelson Reilly doing the same likable voice he'd done in so many other cartoons and Dom Deluise with his normal, over the top voice. Other than the music and voices though, this is an utterly ridiculous movie.

I dislike the beginning, and I downright despise the ending of this sappy kiddie junk that should have had less put into the direction, and more into the writing.

My rating: * out of ****. 75 mins. G.


When I saw this on Cable I presumed it was from the 1960s. The animation is a bit fuzzy, and the colors and the effects really look like 1960s animation. Surprised to discover that this animated movie was from 1994! Dom DeLuise does an excellent job as the main character of Stanley, the friendly troll. The other characters are done well, and a Troll in Central Park is a nice movie, but it is very boring for children who are older than 5 or 6. There are some standard plot elements and moments of discovery.The animation for the little girl is also very good. She is amazingly sweet and innocent If anything, ATICP is too sweet and it lacks any snap or sizzle. This film is like a big gob of melted marshmallows.


When I heard that this film was a German Black Comedy I was very interested in it, cause I like both German Comedy and Black Comedy. But the combination of them both doesn't work: "Undertaker's Paradise" is surely one of the most boring films I saw this year, not funny and not "black" at all. I liked the Welsh nature you could see in this film, for this I'll give it 3 out of 10, but forget about the rest.


I was led to buy the first two DVDs from the glowing comments I read on this site and from having really enjoyed James Herriot's books which I've read and reread over the years. Well, books do not age or hardly but films (and TV films most especially) do. So I really do not recommend buying those DVDs unless one is nostalgic of static camera work, slow pace, bad special effects and mediocre acting from all but Robert Hardy, the actor portraying Siegfried (but I never pictured him that way from reading the book - I think he's described as tall, dark and elegant, and I imagined him much, much younger...). In fact neither I nor my children have been able to finish watching the 2nd DVD. I've seldom watched something so slow-paced. I suppose in any case that much of Herriot's humour comes from exaggeration and choice of words, and that's probably next to impossible to render on screen...


Robin Williams and friends from the Second City gang take a vacation on the lovely, fictional isle of St.Nicholas (filmed in Jamaica) in the summer of 1985 and bring along Peter O'Toole, Twiggy and Jimmy Cliff. They even remember to make a feature film while they are there. Too bad they forgot to include more laughs. Sunstroke maybe? Enjoy the tropical locations and songs by reggae star Jimmy Cliff. The mindless and undeveloped story wastes a ton of comic talent. Fans of Williams and SCTV will get a kick of seeing all the comic actors in one place, but will be hard pressed to enjoy it. I think their home videos of the trip would have been funnier to watch. For some reason I find myself watching it every now and again.

Turn your brain down to 'warm,sunny Caribbean beach' mode and just enjoy the few entertaining bits of this studio-funded holiday.


I used to like Robin Williams. As time has gone on I've come to realize that perhaps I don't very much. When he's funny, he's hilarious. When he isn't. . . it's embarrassing. And CLUB PARADISE is one of the worst films he's made, which is saying something. It's hard to imagine that something so bad could have been directed by Harold Ramis (usually a rather reliable director/writer).

The cast all look awkward and the jokes are forced and unfunny. I think CLUB PARADISE is probably one of the only comedies I can think of that doesn't even really entertain on some sort of level. No, it's not totally awful, but it's not amusing which is a huge flaw for any "comedy." 1.5/5 stars


You see the names: Robin Williams, Peter O'Toole, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis. Wonderful actors, and very funny. You naturally assume that you will be spending most of your time rolling on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. Then you make one serious mistake. You decide to actually watch "Club Paradise."

This movie is dreadful. It isn't funny; it isn't even close to being funny. You do not laugh. Instead, you struggle - and often fail - to stay awake during this interminable piece of rubbish. I won't even get into talking about the plot, such as it is, except to say that it matches everything else about this movie: it's dreadful.

1/10


This wallow is an "erotic thriller" and we can be certain of that because it is called so upon the home video box. There are many examples of this seamy genre, particularly prevalent since the late 1980s, the film under discussion here being perhaps the most financially rewarding, earning more than 30 million dollars above its production cost of $750,000, but only a rabid fan of this cinematic category may consider it to be an artistic success, as well. A very small company, Night Eyes Security, composed of two Griffith brothers, is tasked with guarding the Beverly Hills estate of a British pop musician, Brian Walker, and his wife Nikki (Tanya Roberts) but after she discovers her husband making the grade with a young woman during a party in their home, Mrs. Walker files for divorce, following which Mr. Walker hires Night Eyes to supposedly protect his soon-to-be former wife at their Malibu residence, although his true purpose is to obtain damning video tapes from surveillance cameras that he hopes will record Nikki's own sexual misconduct, thereby crystallizing his courtroom defense for their looming civil trial. The younger of the brothers, Will (Andrew Stevens, who also produces here as well as contributing heavily to the screenplay), a rather artless character, does in fact espy Nikki in flagrante delicto, but this apparently fortuitous event for Brian is nullified because Will has succumbed to the physical charms of the wayward wife and has decided to withhold the evidential tape from the musician and his attorney, played by able supporting player Paul Carr, causing a viewer to recognize that the lovestruck security guard can not be considered as an example of rectitude. Becoming involved in his duties well beyond the operation and maintenance of his mini-company's surveillance equipment, Will is delighted as Nikki ostensibly matches his passion, as is evident from a cluster of scenes wherein the two explore each other's private areas, but complications appear when murder, rape and sundry other felonies occur in conjunction with their affair, Will being the primary suspect for the crimes. The substantial profit garnered by this movie prompted production of three sequels, each continuing the amourous adventures of young Will and his trusty spy cameras, and even though their potential merits cannot be determined by this viewer, the first number in the series does provide an unexpected element of suspense in addition to capable costuming from Ha Nguyen, fine stunt performing, and a polished turn from Carr. An unrated version is available that seemingly promises to provide additional footage of the ardent romantic actions shared by the mismatched lovers.


All-too-typical erotic thriller that doesn't generate much heat or suspense. The plot (complete with minor "twists") is, most of the time, devoid of interest, and the sex scenes, although frequent, don't last too long (OK, I probably didn't see the unrated version). Andrew Stevens is not a dislikable actor, he's actually pretty competent - but that Tanya Roberts proves again (after "Inner Sanctum") that she's remarkably untalented. (*1/2)


Without giving any spoilers...if you can watch an anime about a retard with big breasts fighting in a tournament oriented series about feuding school districts, then this is the box set to buy! If Hanes or Fruit of the Loom needs a new spokesperson, then any female in this series will do...overdone panty shots every 30 seconds is a bit much. The animation is average, sound is average and the dub is pathetic. The series is barely watchable if you have absolutely nothing else to do, but the story is tired and has no direction. Even the intro and outro music is butt-awful....even for anime standards.

Honestly, my favorite part of the series was when the middle break for advertising shows the returning segment....if you time it just right, you can make a fart sound just as her skirt lifts to show the logo on her butt cheek.

Bottom line is, if you enjoyed this...you really need a girlfriend.


So many people recommended this show to me saying that it was good and full of fan service. Well me being one to enjoy the occasional fan service gave Ikki Tosen a whirl... big mistake there. Ikki Tosen is a 13 episode action anime loosely based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Chinese novel. Pretty much there's a city where all the high school students wear megatamas (earrings resembling a half of the yin yang symbol) that possess the spirit of an ancient Chinese warrior (from the novel no less). Their fates are tied with the spirit in their jewels so if the soldier died in the past its gonna happen to this kid. You see this town has a serious problem with its educational systems. first of all there are no teachers at the schools, second all the schools are constantly trying to conquer the other, and lastly every single kid is an expert fighter, oh and on that note this show is so unoriginal that they actually decided to call the kid's "destined" to fight "Fighters". So these kids end up fighting each other left and right with their apparent parental consent as seen with one of the only adults seen in the entire season. Hakufu's mother which brings us to the main character Hakufu Sonsaku who is blessed to be destined with the spirit of Sun Ce a super powerful Chinese warrior who apparently killed the current big baddie's spirit warrior long ago. God I'm done with plot summary because frankly thats about as deep as it goes, afterwards people fight panties are shown and nonsense is spoken. Ikki Tousen is a show that revolves around 2 things: Fighting and soft core porn. Heres how a fight scene will pretty much always carry out if it has a girl in it: fight for 5 seconds, invisible attack, girl loses 95% of clothes, keeps fighting, someone wins. fan service is acceptable and sometimes encouraged for comic relief but in this case it is literally used to boost the ratings up. The producers knew that this show would suck monkey nuts so they decided long before that no fight would be devoid of its excessive panty shots and covered breasts. The fights themselves are also underwhelming mostly involving random kicks, punches, and throws, anything to flip the girl upside down or get her leg up to show her rump. Then there's the other half of the episode, which involves a lot of taaaaalking and trust me this is some boring talking, why? because they talk about the story plot which doesn't make any sense and is just stuck up its own poop shoot to realize it. Then there's that one green haired girl who is a bad guy sort of. OK she is the epitome of an anime slut and thats an understatement. she has sex with just about everyone making her not very likable already but the director decided to give her emotions all of a sudden. This is the girl that paralyzed the side-kick girl and then proceeded to fondling her underparts then had sex with the guy she was keeping captive, beat him up had sex with the main bad guy went back to the prisoner guy and then had sex with her lackey then her lackey gets offed and then she sacrifices herself... so we're supposed to feel what exactly for this character? Then there's the utterly useless cousin of Hakufu he says his job is to protect her and some characters say hes stronger than he looks but in actuality he loses just about every match he fights in. O speaking of matches this show's second half degrades itself into a tournament anime show (you know? fight after fight leading up to big boss man) and lo and behold something happens to distract the main character from the tournament (just like DBZ or G Gundam or Naruto chunnin exam arc). The point I'm trying to make here is that this show is bad, like Kappa Mikey bad like Bobobo bad except it isn't trying to be funny. The characters are cardboard cutouts (i.e. the main character is a ditsy hot anime girl who has spontaneous brain farts of wisdom) the story is terrible (we've already see the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms plot in all 868 Dynasty Warrior games), not even the intro or closing music/credits are good. The dub is also bad, although Hakufu's dub made me giggle a bit. There is a 2nd season currently but don't hold your breath, the first season ended with only a few incoherent questions about the future. God I hated this show, the worst part is that I actually waited 13 episodes for something even remotely interesting to happen but I never saw it. This show is bad bad bad BAD! 1/10 I sleep now


I heard that Ikki Tousen was a great anime and that it was based off of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. So I thought, "Hey, it can't be this bad, can it?"...Big mistake there. Plot: The show is about a girl named Sonsaku Hakufu, a total stupid spoiled whore, who has the spirit of Sun Ce. Anyhow, she's destined to unite the school just like her counterpart seven centuries ago. Lastly, every kid is an expert fighter. No joke. EVERY. SINGLE. KID. And the fight scenes...don't get me started. All they do is just fight, sudden attack, girl loses 99% of her clothing, someone wins. And the characters are laughably bad. There's Ryofu (who has the spirit of Lu Bu) and is a total SLUT. No joke. Nearly every girl in the anime has boobs the size of a house...seriously, what the hell? And not to mention Hakufu has a worthless cousin named Shuuyu Koukin who says he can fight, but he can't. And the dub sucks. By sucks, I mean Mortal kombat annihilation sucks. Really, everyone in the dub sounds like they are either on crack or are unemotional. Really, it has three seasons, but it's not worth watching. And also, it makes even ROTK and DW look bad. I swear, this anime is just simply Mortal kombat meets hentai. I wish I could give this a -10 out of 10, but I can't, so I'll give it a 1/10.


Fellini exposes his great attraction for the clowns and the world of the circus first recalling a childhood experience when the circus arrives nearby his home. Then he joins his crew and travel from Italy to Paris chasing the last greatest European clowns still live in these countries. He also meets Anita Ekberg trying to buy a panther in a circus.

The overrated "I Clowns" is the weakest movie of Fellini that I have ever seen. This documentary is an absolutely personal and boring homage to the clowns and the world of the circus. Maybe Fellini had had a great satisfaction in this tribute since the theme was his childhood obsession; however I found it extremely painful to hear and watch after thirty minutes. If this documentary was a short, it could be more watchable. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Os Palhaços" ("The Clowns")


This is quite possibly one of the worst movies I have watched in a long, long time.

After reading some of the positive comments about it though I am really shocked that some people enjoyed this. I honestly believe that this movie getting a 3.7 is about 2.7 points too much...

This movie was a complete waste of my time and just reiterated my belief that Burt Reynolds is officially an acting has-been. The acting is forced and rides along cameo appearances (and less notably, mentions) by Tony Danza (and Anthony Hopkins).

Looking at these 'strippers' play volleyball can only bring about so much excitement, and it certainly does not warrant an entire hour and a half of your life...

Stay away from this movie if you can, its not deserving of any of your money, or you time for that matter.


Over the last ten years, Burt Reynolds has straddled the line between being an A-lister and a B-lister. His best known comeback was in 1997, when he re-emerged into the A-list spotlight with "Boogie Nights". Ten years later, he was still making good movies along the likes of "Mystery, Alaska" and the decent remake of "The Longest Yard". If he keeps doing movies like "Cloud 9", he may have to kiss those A-list parts goodbye again.

The problem with "Cloud 9" is not that Burt Reynolds is bad in it. In fact, the movie starts out really well with Reynolds playing a lovable loser. It's not the first time he plays one of these characters, and he usually plays it very well. It's just that the movie is boggled down with so many sports and rags-to-riches movie clichés that by the end, the movie seems far from original even though the premise is.

The premise is another great thing about this movie, and the movie had the right idea about where to go with it until the very end. The problems occur with the lack of character development. Burt Reynolds' and D.L. Hughley's characters are pretty well developed, but the strippers could have been made into more interesting characters. Instead, they are just one-dimensional stereotypes borrowed from other movies. There's the jive-talking black woman, the blond stripper with a heart of gold, the angry Latino stripper, and the Russian bombshell that no speak English good. Oh yeah, and although Angie Everheart does a better-than-expected acting job in this movie, her character has been done before. If I had a nickel for every movie where there was a smart, single mother who was forced to strip to support their only child, I'd be a millionaire. In fact, wasn't Burt Reynolds himself in a big budget film with one of those characters? The name "Striptease" rings a bell, as does the name "Demi Moore". And as I remember, that movie didn't get stellar reviews either.

Last but not least, Gabrielle Reese could have been utilized better in this movie. Sure, she's a natural fit for playing a professional volleyball athlete, since she is one in real life. But the problem comes when she expresses her objection to strippers playing volleyball, since that would bring the wrong kind of exposure to the sport. Of course she is correct and has a valid point, but the movie unevenly makes her out to be the villain of the story because of that viewpoint. Plus, the guys in the movie make fun of the fact that she's built like an athlete, which doesn't send a good message to young women who see this movie. They appear to completely forget the fact that Gaby Reese is one of the most beautiful women in the world, let alone the most gorgeous athlete. In fact, I found myself rooting for her side at the end of the film, and really not caring either way if the heroines won.

This movie was very promising. In fact, the movie started out great, and even Paul Rodriguez was funny as Juan a.k.a. Wong. However, the really important characters in this story were underdeveloped, and so many movie clichés, tired archetypes, and male posturing made this movie unenjoyable. I reiterate when I say that Burt Reynolds should probably get a new agent, because he has been in and can be in better movies.


Do not watch this movie. There are 2 reasons for that:

1. It is so boring that it tops the list of the most boring films ever made. It felt at some points that is is a porno film, but when any girl got half naked the scene ended. The level of the dialogs remain though at the level of porno films.

2. Strippers are couched to be volleyball players. I really feel that it undermines the dedication and the amount of work needed to be a professional athlete.

This is a porn movie with a lame plot that characterizes porn movies in general, but with all the "skin parts" removed. It's a huge waste of time! They should pay me for the time I spent watching this (even so I wouldn't do it again).


When Roland Copping was a child, he rolled the dice with a stipulation that if its his number, his brother would have to ride on a river. If its his brother's, then he'll write it. A roll of the dice later, Copping's brother inadvertently did a header off a water fall and has been in a catatonic state ever since.

As for Roland, he becomes a claims investigator and, sure enough, with every roll of the dice, he is a menace to those ranging from his neighbors and passer byes, to the very people he's investigating. And why is this? Simple... his numbers came up.

Hitchcock always had a motive for his villains, Stephin King even wrote reasons why his insane creatures and villains did what they did, Roland Copping chooses to be a jerk because... of a roll of the dice. That's it. This somehow is to explain why he keeps harassing the main characters in this movie, despite the fact that he defraud them and disproved their false claim, he STILL went after them. He went as far as to take their BMW just so he could rig up a remote control to it to harm a passer by.

Maybe I'm not getting something, and if I'm not somebody explain it to me, but this movie made no sense. I only give it a three because Collins surprised me with his acting chops (Haven't seen Buster yet) and can play a jerk very well. I just wish it made some sense.


While "Old Man Dobbs" concocts some awful mixed drink ("smooth!") some red-eyed alien briefly appears outside, and then an alien spacecraft flies overhead and causes his drink to bubble away to nothing. "Consarned aeroplanes!" Those Dobbses, always encountering UFOs. Why, I could tell you a thing or two about J.R. "Bob" Dobbs...

But anyway, twenty years later, "Old Man Cranston," a well-dressed Santa Claus-looking fellow with a yellow British Rolls Royce lets teenager Carl have the key to his old haunted mill. Carl and his friends will use it for a Halloween "Spook Alley." Meanwhile, a rival group wants to win the Spook Alley contest, so they decide to scare Carl and his friends out of using the mill, since everyone finds it scary in and of itself.

Unfortunately, there's an alien called a Varrow living there who would like to kill off every human on Earth one at a time. It can disguise itself as human beings.

As SCTV's Count Floyd would say, "Ooh, scary, kids!" This is a pretty lame movie (albeit with a neat location), and another user comment indicating it had to do with a radio contest at least makes a little sense of it all. I wonder what sort of distribution it got prior to making it to video. I saw this on videotape as The Varrow Mission, in an old clamshell case box. No photos on the box at all, usually a good indicator of bad quality (see badmovies.org's "How to Find a Bad Movie" - this one might rate 16 points). The box made this sound more of a horror/sci-fi movie than whatever this is.


A classic if you have absolutely NOTHING better to do.This includes watching paint dry and grass grow. Having said that I have s soft spot for this. I saw it when I was 7 or 8 in a theater for a birthday party. One of the cast members was even sitting in front of us. The old mill in the movie is used at Halloween as a spook alley so I have been through it once. This is the worst movie I have seen and probably ever will but a few years ago I got thinking about it and manages to get myself a copy of it so I am the proud owner of the worst movie ever made. If you can find it watch it once. Then any movie you see after that won't be too bad.


I LOVE this movie! Sure it's hokey, but watch almost any "B" Sci-Fi from the 60's and 70's!

I own both versions, "Teen Alien" and "Varrow Mission".

It took me years to track down both version. Ebay is your best bet for trying to find any out of print videos. I'm not a "Fanatic" of this movie, I'm just married to the Varrow Male.

My hubby was one of the few guys in the Jordan High School Drama club that was chosen to act in this movie, they weren't even going to pay these kids until one of them found out and left after the filming had already started and they had to refilm all the stuff he had been in.

I bought them to show our family, friends and to show our daughter that it's okay to make act weird sometimes!


In the late 1950s, the residents of a small Utah township report strange happenings in the vicinity of their town -- some even report seeing alien spaceships, but one is ever able to confirm this -- at least no one living! Now after more than 25 years, the waiting is over. And a new generation is about to experience the horror of -- THE VARROW MISSION.

In all of my years watching movies -- and I've seen thousands -- this is the worst, most terrible, sad, pathetic, pitiable, confusing and generally so-screwed-up-it-must-be-a-joke-movie I have ever seen. For context, here are some other bad movies: The Meat Eater, Space Mutiny, and Platoon. (Yes, THAT Platoon.) But this is the worst. I came across this film in the bargain bin at a Blockbuster video store in Toronto --it came free with two rentals. The other bargain box films I got included a seasonal highlight video for the 1990 Houston Rockets and the best of Victor Borge (which was awesome.) But this movie was a terrible mistake. It haunts me to this day -- it is the worst movie ever made, and always will be, with no hyperbole or post-modernist sarcasm. It's not even a movie, as far as I can tell.


Yes, this movie is lame. There were only a few members of the cast with any real acting experience. The rest were extras with lines, which were mostly forgettable.

However, I have family members who were involved in filming it and I would like to be able to torture them with it...

So where can I get my hands on a copy???