IN: Review: MEN OF HONOR features Cuba Gooding Jr., in what is probably his best performance to date. He plays Carl Brashear, a man of towering courage and heroism. He's a poor dirt farmer from the South, who wants to become a Navy diver- but has problems because of his race. The head of the diving school, played by Robert DeNiro, is a racist redneck that nonetheless grows to respect Brashear. The film is about how Brashear has to concur the nearly insurmountable odds, not once but twice. The performances are what make this film special. Gooding is great, and DeNiro, the best actor in movie history, gives a towering performance- his best dramatic work in years. Charlize Theron gives another solid performance as DeNiro's much younger wife. The film lays on the patriotism a little too strong (though no where near the level it was in THE PATRIOT), and a few of the characters are just one dimensionally bad (Hal Holbrook's Mr. Pappy is just so evil), but the film is a rarity among films today. It's uplifting and uncynical. A wonderful film.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: I got the DVD very cheap and I'm a total Drewbie, and thats probably the only constellation where this movie could ever interest anyone.

An early Drew movie, she's looking great, and she gets a quite lot of really cute scenes of her, like a shower scene, a sexy dance scene, quite a number of sexy outfits etc. She does never show the friendly charm we know from her more recent movies.

The movie itself is pretty average or sub-average, and much more looking like being made for the TV than one for the cinema. There is no real horror or tension built up and the dialogs are often cheesy.

The most interesting part is probably the end because I honestly don't understand it. But maybe there is nothing to understand about it anyway. But at least you don't get the end you would be expecting, and it also comes much sooner than one would have expected.

Overall I think this movie is exclusively for Drewbies.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: A sober, reflexive piece, a little miniature which blossoms into a magnificent humane pictorial sequence which goes beyond a mere dramatization for the screen. This quiet little story will hold you enthralled - if you do not have too many problems with the various Spanish accents ranging from Mexican to Peruvian, and Marisa Paredes' more authentic Iberian Peninsular usage! Garciadiego has accomplished a perfect adaptation from the novel: even the grand maestro Garcia Marquez should be proud of her superb work. And hats off to Arturo Ripstein who has so ably concerted the whole effort into a gem, a ruby, and so refined, so elegant, so sensitive, so touchingly.....

El Coronel - Fernando Lujan - is waiting to get his pension, while he continues to live in his ramshackle timber dwelling deep in the Colombian jungle (however, filmed elsewhere, NOT in Colombia) with his fighting cock and his wife (in that order?). And that is all there is to it.

But, oh, so much more.... This film is a rhapsody.

I must see this poetic little piece again as soon as possible. Worth the high side of 8 out of 10, which is very high on my scale.

This is not light commercial Hollywood stuff.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Poorly-made "blaxploitation" crime-drama aimed squarely at the black urban market of the early 1970s. Pam Grier stars in the title role, that of a nurse who becomes a one-woman vigilante after drug-dealing thugs make Coffy's little sister a junkie. Violent nonsense plods along doggedly, with canned energy and excitement; only Grier's flaring temper gives the narrative a jolt (she's not much of an actress here, but she connects with the audience in a primal way). Not much different from what Charles Bronson was doing at this time, the film was marketed and advertised as crass exploitation yet still managed to find a sizable inner-city audience. Today however, it's merely a footnote in '70s film history, and lacks the wide-range appeal of other movies in this genre. *1/2 from ****
What is this review like?
OUT:
negative