Q: Set in Providence, Rhode Island, Feeding the Masses tries to be a satiric look at the role of the media in government. At best, it could be applied to how the US try to control media during the Iraq War, but it ends up feeling hollow. There's never any really tension in the story and the acting never very good. Worst, the direction of the movie is atrocious, focus more on odd camera angles that fail to convey anything beyond "Isn't this an odd way to hold the camera." Special effects are pretty bad...at one point video of an explosion is green screened over the city, and it's laughable at best.

The film does have a couple bright spots...namely the advertisements for post-zombie services (including a reclamation service and a party bus). But it's far too little to make the film worthwhile.

For a better zombie film, try Hide and Creep. It has the same weak production value, but there's much more wit, humor and talent behind it.
A: negative
Q: I would like to say that unlike many of the people who disliked this film and found it impossible to understand I was fully able to understand it for what it is.. A very incoherent attempt at a plot line.

I don't like to toss this word around but in this case it fits very well. The director firstly presents the material in an extremely "arrogant" way and worse, extremely incoherently. It is incoherent in that it presents the material in a messy dislodged order, making us think that the director was too drunk to remember which scenes come first, and arrogant in that at 2 hours long they expect us, the viewer to CARE by the end of it.

I respect surrealist cinema for what it is. (creating a story around a more than real world that does not tie to real life) But there is nothing surreal about having a story placed in ordinary modern times, and a modern day earth setting, that is most importantly not able to engage the audience but furthermore, simply a dislodged series of events that barely tie together. The most accurate way to describe the experience of viewing this film is like viewing a story; perhaps even a very GOOD story as it was based on a book, but being frustrated by the fact that the camera doesn't seem to capture the necessary moments and tie together any means of coherence.

Let's compare stylistic cinema. Compare Gaspar Noe's "Seul contre tous" to this. He gave us a coherent, extremely engaging and intellectually deep story. This movie offers no intellectual study, and while it is very stylistic in it's fragmented presentation, the director has ultimately abandoned the essential art of good storytelling and all we are left with is a mess of events that barely tie in together.

Yes indeed it IS possible to make sense of things.... to a POINT. But as i said earlier the viewer will reach a stage where they simply say "Who cares." It plays out like watching a drab mundane story of a man going to a supermarket and buying groceries in uncronological order. Even with murders it is completely uninteresting and unengaging. Too many people these days will give high marks to something they are unable to understand or make sense of simply for fear of looking foolish, and in every way this film TRIES to make the viewer look foolish.

If you have too much time on your hands, then please watch this film, taking into account what I have said of it. It is a story based on a book that could have been presented in a MUCH more effective way and that is my bottom line reasoning.
A: negative
Q: WRITTEN ON THE WIND, directed by Douglas Sirk and released in 1956, is like all of Sirk's mid 50's films- pure melodrama. Yet it is engrossing, richly developed melodrama, and Sirk's trademark lurid colour expressionism, throbbing, barely repressed emotions, symbolism and juxtaposition of the classes make this a film to crave.

The film opens brilliantly, with the four central characters and the plot being introduced as the credits are still rolling. Sirk uses a clever flashback structure to take us into his world...

Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone are magnificent as the two Hadley "kids", Kyle and Marylee. He drinks and sleeps around with women. She drinks and sleeps around with men. They both are worth millions, thanks to the Hadley oil business. Hunky, yet poor, Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson) is Kyle's lifelong friend, and Marylee's dream lover. Enter into this sordid mess Lucy Moore (Lauren Bacall), a slim, attractive young woman who falls under Kyle's charms after he picks up a phone and flies her across the countryside one evening. Mitch loves her too, but Kyle wins her. They quickly marry, and Kyle stops drinking. But fate seems to be written on the wind, and it is not long before a conniving Marylee (who will "have Mitch", marriage or no marriage), a secretly smitten Mitch, the confused Lucy and the sad drunk Kyle come to blows....

Malone is just wonderful as Marylee Hadley, thoroughly deserving her Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She steals every scene she is in. Stack is almost just as good, amping up the melodrama, while still maintaining subtly and quiet desperation. Hudson and Bacall are a lot more restrained than those two, yet it is in keeping with the characters they play.

So, what's all this melodrama really about it? Well, a lot of things. Stack's powerful portrait of male inadequacy and fear, for one thing. Sirk surrounds Stack with phallic symbols throughout the film- note his tiny little gun, the oil derricks and the ultimate phallic symbol, Kyle's seeming inability to conceive children. Stack seems to be suffering from a massive male superiority complex, made worse by his father's preference for Hudson, his sister's desire for Hudson, and his suspicion that his wife is carrying on with Hudson. With all this wealth Kyle Hadley still ends up at the wrong end of town, buying cheap corn liquor like a "bum".

It's about impossible dreams, and having to let go of them. The river where Kyle, Marylee and Mitch used to play when they were kids is constantly referenced throughout the film, symbolising Kyle and (especially) Marylee's wish for the innocence and simplicity of youth. In an excellent melodramatic scene, perfectly pulled off by Malone, Marylee's stands by the river and imagines herself again as a child, with voice-over of Mitch telling Marylee that she will always be his girl. This is where Sirk strikes a huge emotional chord with the viewer. Who hasn't dreamed about going back to that special place in childhood? Who hasn't, at some point, lived on a treasured memory? Who hasn't wanted something they couldn't have? And Hudson's last line of the film (yes, he gets no dialogue in the last 10 or so minutes, only close-ups) recollects on how "far we've come from the river, Marylee". Amazing.
A: positive