IN: Review: 'Stanley and Iris' is a heart warming film about two people who find each other and help one another overcome their problems in life. Stanley's life is difficult, because he never learned to read or write. Iris is a widower with two teenage children working in a bakery where she meets Stanley. She decides to teach Stanley how to read at her home in her spare time. Over time they become romantically involved. After Stanley learns to read, he goes off to a good job in Chicago, only to return to Iris and ask her to marry him.

It's a really good film without nudity, violence, or profanity, that which is rare in today's films. A good film all round.

What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Well, what to say...

Having seen the film I still have to wonder what the hell the point of it all really was?? V.Dodgy camera moves in the courtyard at one point... I had to look away from the screen, I was feeling physically sick... Round and Round and Round.... You get the idea...

VERY VERY Strange accents at many points.... "Those that should know, know"

Unless your getting in for free, or being paid to watch it, or your partner is about to make you paint the house or something.. then forget it...
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: I don't know...Maybe it's just because it's an impressive tribute to some Muslim religious action(hajj)but I just felt the movie is so underrated. I just can't believe that the movie has just been voted by only 223 people so far given that the movie was produced in 2004 and it has won many awards since then.About the movie...it's one of those well-acted sweet movies.Reda,a French teenager due to sit for Baccalaureat, is asked by his devout elderly father to take him to Mecca.Strange as it may seem(if one doesn't know much about Islam)the father wants his son to drive them from their home in France to Saudia Arabia on a once-in-a-lifetime religious pilgrimage.The generation gap between the father and the son is based on simple enough terms('you may know how to read and write, but you know nothing about life,' the unnamed father to his son)but some sort of bromidic generation gap literature is avoided.Bot of them are affectionate in their frustrations.The father never speaks in French though Reda understands Arabic but can only seem to answer in French. Though they encounter many people on the road: "There's the scary old woman they pick up in the Bosnian border on the way to Belgrade, and the talkative Mustafa(Jacky Nercessian), who helps them out at the border of Turkey,the reticent and shy women wearing burqas on the way to Damascus" the focus is always on the mismatched father and son.There is not much of a conversation in the movie which makes it enjoyable to your eyes. You see magnificent views in every city they go.The director shows you even the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia even though the movie is not relatively long.

Generally I don't like movies which don't have enough dialogs and which take their power from camera subtleties but this one was really great.Despite some unanswered details(like Reda's unseen French girlfriend)the movie appeals to senses.Great work of art and remember this movie is Ismael Ferroukhi's debut.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Simply awful slasher, molded from the I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER type of fodder, has beautiful wealthy college students spending spring break in a Florida condo being murdered one by one. A misfire in every category imaginable from properly built suspense to the executed death sequences..nothing is handled properly and the characters leave little more than caricatures you root to see decimated as quick as possible. Del Tenney(The Curse of the Living Corpse;I Eat Your Skin), of all people, executive produced, co-wrote, and stars as a priest in a pivotal role whose relationship to the killer I guess means something to why he's psychotic. The revelation of the killer is awkwardly handled and ineffective, probably not surprising a soul who watches it. There are a lot of attempted jump scares, with one character popping out to frighten their friend, which couldn't even manufacture a few cheap thrills, because they are so calculated in such a tepid way. Most of the attacks occur off-screen with bleeding throat cuts(..or pools)representing the only real display of violence. The protracted finale, where the killer goes on and on with the actor desperately trying to make his villain as diabolical and demented as possible, is embarrassing and tense-less. There's not one single positive to derive from this cliched and dull exercise with the pretty cast making little effort to rise past their one-dimensional roles. And, for pity sake, they could've at least allowed us to see Joey Lawrence get decapitated or something for withstanding the misery of sitting through this junk heap for 90 agonizing minutes.

Dorie Barton, as the heroine final girl, Beth Morgan, who the killer seems to be obsessed with, couldn't be more vacuous and uninteresting(..oh, she was in rehab, and takes pills for her nightmares;such intriguing exposition). Chad Allen, cast against type as a very intimidating "friend" of the group(..who happens to disappear from the film first, setting up the idea that he's the first victim), has a tough hill to climb with his role, so steep he eventually stumbles, rolling uncontrollably with no end in sight. Jeff Conaway, needing some cash I guess, has the beleaguered FBI agent role, whose daughter's murder motivates him to seek out the killer, leading him to Florida. Jack McGee has his usual a$$hole role as a smart-mouth Florida Police Chief who is often nose to nose with Conaway's agent.

Oh, the answer to the title's question..not really. Because once you get the answer, you will wonder why you bothered with this anyway.
What is this review like?
OUT:
negative