IN: Review: There were a lot of things going against this movie for me before I watched it.

First, I was a typical high school senior, in a Shakespeare class I didn't really even like, much less understood half of! Shakespeare would be no more than UNINTELLIGIBLE without me pouring ALL my concentration into his almost encrypted plays... encrypted with his extremely difficult to understand language.... and then I still wouldn't get most of it.

Second, it was 4 hours long! I never thought that could be a good thing.

Well let me tell you something. This movie was so masterful, so beautiful, I actually understood all the language as it was being performed. Now, the script was followed to the letter in this movie, the same script that was incomprehensible to me in Shakespeare class. And here I was my mind opening and me understanding it. I was doubting myself while watching the movie almost! But lo and behold... when performed, and only then, Shakespeare comes to life. So this version of Hamlet showed me that Shakespeare is indeed a master, who wrote great stories. When I saw it on the big screen, especially in the high budget major motion picture style (with beautiful cinematography and photography), and acted amazingly by Brannagh and cast, somehow.... I understood what was going on. What was being said. The language is awesome and passionate. It allows for more raw emotion... when words can't describe something, maybe Shakespeare's words can.

I still hold to this day that Fist of The North Star (animated, english dub) is the greatest movie ever made. No movie provides more sheer entertainment. But for a movie to come close to dethroning Fist from that position (which Hamlet did -- it came close) is truly amazing.... awe inspiring. It wasn't a movie. It was an event.

Even more amazing, it made me appreciate shakespeare. Wow. Powerful. Powerful is the word. One of the rare, TRULY powerful movies out there.

This gets 2 hundred trillion stars out of infinity stars. Yes yes.

By the way, all you kids out there in a Shakespeare class... forget it. You're wasting you're time. You have to see the plays performed. Only then will justice be done to them.
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OUT: positive

IN: Review: So 'Thinner'... Yep.. This Steven Bachman (read Steven King) yarn about a man who gets his just desserts from a Gypsy Elder who he just killed, The story itself is there, no doubt about it, but I don't know why I didn't enjoy it more than I could have. I guess what really distracted me was the actors. I mean, who's the lead? Robert John Burke? Who's he? And fer crying out loud, can someone please stop hiring Joseph Mantegna for every Italian Mafioso role there ever is? And while we're at it, does every Mafioso have to have a pasta cooking Italian mother? The only good acting job done here is under 10 pounds of makeup, Michael Constantine as the Gypsy elder. He's pretty good. But the rest, I make you all, "better actors..."
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OUT: negative

IN: Review: Reading some of the comments on the message boards here I was expecting this movie to be a complete letdown - but when I watched it I could not stop laughing! It has officially become my new favourite movie.

I don't know what all the hate here is about, maybe it's because a movie of this kind has never really been around before. I am at a loss to name another completely female driven comedy. Plenty of comedies will have one or two actresses in the lead, but there will be a lot of supporting male characters. This one was almost ALL women - with the exception of Seth Meyers, Justin Hartley and the brief appearance of Will Arnett - and it worked. All of the actresses delivered very funny performances (especially Missi Pyle) from a quirky and lovable script.

The charm of this film, to me, seems to be in its subtle feminist message: accepting who you are, female success in the public sphere, the strength of female friendships and breaking gender roles. Light-hearted though it is, each of the lead characters face a challenge as their attempts to be more 'fun' conflict with their feminist values and who they knew themselves to be.

Missi Pyle proposed that this film missed a theatrical release because of its all-female cast and lack of a big-name actor to get the studios behind it, and I have to agree. Everyone I've recommended this film to has loved it and I think it's a shame that a comedy celebrating female dorkiness hasn't been widely accepted and successful.

I highly recommend this film to anyone with an open mind or a love of female-centred comedy.
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IN: Review: Dripping with symbolism and filled with marvelous cinematography, Extase is so much more than the erotic drama we've all come to expect. This is almost a silent film, with what dialogue there is in German, and highly simplified German at that. Perhaps the filmmakers intended the film to reach the widest possible European audience, as anyone with even a little high school level Deutsch can easily dispense with the subtitles. The story is of little importance anyway, with the film succeeding on a cinematic level, not a narrative one. Symbols of fecundity and the power of nature overwhelm the human characters--there are even scenes where flowers obscure the face of supposed star Hedy Lamarr--and there are moments here that will remind viewers of the works of Dreyer, Vertov, and Riefenstahl. If the film has any message to convey, I think it's a political one: bourgeois man is timid and impotent; working class man is a happy, productive creature; and woman is the creator, destined to be unfulfilled until she has borne a child. This blend of Soviet socialist realism and National Socialist dogma doesn't overwhelm the film by any means--it's a beauty to watch from beginning to end--but it does place it in a very distinct artistic era. And, oh yeah, Hedy does get her kit off.
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positive