Problem: This review is like what?
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive

Review:I found Grey Garden's to be a gripping film, an amazingly intimate

look at too eccentrics who basically have the right idea: forget

society and live in a delapidated house with no heating and a huge

brood of cats and raccoons, persuing their own interests rather

mundainly, all the while chattering at the camera.

Big Edie and Little Edie are the two crazies that the Mazles Bros.

have chosen to document. They seem like characters out of a

Fellini film, only stranger, if that makes any sense. Old Edie is

almost fully bedridden, a pile of papers, clothes and dirty dishes

growing around her. Little Edie is even more interesting. She

prances around the house, always wearing a baboushka-like

headdress around her head, completely covering her hair. We

never see her hair throughout the film, nor do we ever get a hint

that she still has much. At age fifty eight, though, she is still

beautiful and full of life.

In Grey Gardens, we get the sense that both of these women's

lives have become much less than what they once were. Little

Edie is probably the sadder of the two. While her mother, in her

earlier years, got married, made a family, lived luxuriously and

even made some recordings (the scene where, at 77, she sings

along with a recording of "Tea for Two" she made decades ago is

one of the films best scenes), Edie left her promicing career as a

model to take care of her ailing mother. At 58, she still longed to

find her prince charming. If anything Little Edie is still a little girl,

full of dreams of glamour and fame, and of domestic and romantic

bliss, that have yet to be fulfilled.

Highlights of the film include the opening moments, where Little

Edie explains her outfit to the camera, the "tea for two" sequence,

the birthday party, the climactic argument, the grocery deliver

scene, and the scene in the attic. The whole thing is incredibly

candid and unpretencious. And it's made all the more remarcable

since it's all real.

I suggest seeing Grey Gardens back-to-back with the Kenneth

Anger short Puce Moment. The Criterion DVD is $35.00, but it's

worth every penny.
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?
OPTIONS:
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- positive

Review:Hickory Dickory Dock was a good Poirot mystery. I confess I have not read the book, despite being an avid Agatha Christie fan. The adaptation isn't without its problems, there were times when the humour, and there were valiant attempts to get it right, was a little overdone, and the events leading up to the final solution were rather rushed. I also thought there were some slow moments so some of the mystery felt padded. However, I loved how Hickory Dickory Dock was filmed, it had a very similar visual style to the brilliant ABC Murders, and it really set the atmosphere, what with the dark camera work and dark lighting. The darker moments were somewhat creepy, this was helped by one of the most haunting music scores in a Poirot adaptation, maybe not as disturbing as the one in One Two Buckle My Shoe, which gave me nightmares. The plot is complex, with all the essential ingredients, though not as convoluted as Buckle My Shoe,and in some way that is a good thing. The acting was very good, David Suchet is impeccable(I know I can't use this word forever but I can't think of a better word to describe his performance in the series) as Poirot, and Phillip Jackson and Pauline Moran do justice to their integral characters brilliantly. And the students had great personalities and well developed on the whole, particularly Damian Lewis as Leonard. All in all, solid mystery but doesn't rank along the best. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?
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Review:I have to say that there is nothing wrong with low budget films, so that was not my problem with it. My problem with it is that I felt like I was watching my next door neighbor's home movie. IMO everything about it just seemed like a guy wrote out a quick story, grabbed a camera, and started shooting. I understand how hard this must be to do effectively, but when I pay to rent a film, I expect to feel like I am watching some type of professionally made movie.

John Schneider has a huge resume, is a great actor, and was fine in this film. The other people in it were not. I understand how it must be fun, and cheaper to use friends, and relatives as the cast, but it doesn't make for convincing acting. It seemed like the way it was shot, he was trying to give many of the scenes a more interesting look, but when the writing, plot, and acting are there to begin with, that type of style isn't necessary, and it is a distraction.

Also on a technical level, it had digital artifacts all over the place. In the first scene of all of those fine cars, when they did a slow scan of them, they appeared to jerk back and forth just a little bit. The problem isn't in my viewing equipment, (Benq PE-8700 84" diagonal) but somewhere in the production. I've never seen that kind of artifact in a professionally made film before. Then there was the sound. It sounded like they didn't do any voice-overs, which may be o.k. unless it sounded like the track in this film. It sounded like the built in microphone on the camera.
+++++++++
A:
negative