Q: Even though the book wasn't strictly accurate to the real situation it described it still carried a sense of Japan. I find it hard to believe that anyone who was involved in making this film had ever been to japan as it didn't feel Japanese in the slightest. Almost everything about it was terrible. I will admit the actors were generally quite good but couldn't stand a chance of saving it. Before the film started I was surprised that there were only ten people in the cinema on a Friday night shortly after the movie had opened in Japan. 30 minutes in I was amazed they stayed. I stayed so I would have the right to criticize it. The whole movie was punctuated my groans and suppressed laughs of disbelief from my Japanese girlfriend. Everyone I saw walking out of that cinema had looks of confusion and disappointment on their faces.

To the makers of this movie, you owe me two hours.
A: negative
Q: Loved it! What's not to like?--you got your suburbia, you got your zombies, you got your family issues, you got your social dilemmas, you got yourself one Fine Retro-1950's-style Flesh Eating Under Class Held At Bay By An Uneasy Worried About Whether They're The Next Meal Upper Crust. You couldn't ask for more.

Cast is superb. Carrie Ann Moss is absolute perfection as a debutante social climbing housewife. She's both wanton, and criminally conspiratorial. Every fellow's dream. K'sun is really great as the son just trying to be as normal as possible in this nightmare existence, and somehow succeeding. He's a genuine screen presence. Very photogenic, and natural. Without naming them all, the rest of the cast is wonderful. Henry Czerny plays a suspicious policeman with honed instincts and little squeamishness as if it's his everyday persona. Billy Connolly is delightful as Fido. A fine actor: I wish that he had played the title role in "Braveheart," with Gibson directing. My sense is that his William Wallace would have been closer to the actual character. His Fido is contained, yet accessible. A nice touch.

In short, a great and marvelous satiric poke at morals, values, social pinnings, feelings, growth, coping in uncertain times, and compensatory adjustments to impossible conditions. A true reality show.
A: positive
Q: I saw this film a couple of weeks ago, and it's been stuck in my head ever since. It stars two spellbinding characters in what is unfortunately a mediocre documentary. To get the true story of the Beales, I had to wade through all of the DVD's bonus material and commentaries and search the web.

Although the Maysles and their fans (not to mention Edith and Edie themselves) bristle at the suggestion that this film is exploitative, this is exploitation in the truest sense of the word. Very little effort is every made to explain the Beales or how they came to the condition they were in - the Maysles approach seems to be to just turn the camera on and wait for Edith and Edie to say something outrageous. The sound, even on the Criterion re-release is poor and difficult to follow. Although I appreciate this film was made somewhat early in the history of documentary film, it's ironic to compare it to Geraldo Rivera's (!) far superior series on the sexual abuse of mentally retarded patients at Willowbrook State School in Staten Island from 1972, four years before Grey Gardens was shot.

To paraphrase a review in the New Yorker, there were many things Edith and Edie needed in their lives, and a documentary wasn't one of them.

As for Edith and Edie, the thing I kept thinking while watching the film was "where the hell is their family"? They were living in dangerous, unhealthy, unsafe conditions. How is it that Jackie O, married to one of the richest men on Earth (or the wealthy Bouvier family themselves) couldn't afford to get Edith and Edie a decent home? Or at the very least hire a part-time housekeeper or caregiver to come in and keep an eye on them both? It's shameful and a lasting disgrace to the entire Bouvier family.

Although this review may sound negative I would strongly recommend Grey Gardens to anyone who enjoys documentaries. Perhaps someday someone will come along and do a documentary about this documentary - bringing in the rich backstory (and afterstory) of the Beales and the whole subsection of Hamptons society in the 1970's.
A: positive
Q: Even 20+ years later, Ninja Mission stands out as the worst movie I ever managed to sit through. Scandanavian ninjas silently enter a scene, fire their obnoxiously noisy sub-machine guns with wild abandon, and then silently leave. Wow, how will we find those silent invisible assassins? Just follow the shell casings and smoke!Painfully bad dialog (or was it brilliant and just poorly translated?), not an Asian in sight in the cast, and a whopping total of 3 Asians among the stunt crew. The plot is ridiculous, the acting pretty much non-existent - then again, ninja can't act! Save yourselves - avoid watching at all costs!
A: negative