Problem: This review is like what?

Review:This is a made-for-TV and rather needless Sci-fi Channel retelling of the Beowulf story, especially after the recent 2005 film "Beowulf and Grendel". This movie doesn't really get into Beowulf's story, but just takes us through his battle against the ravenous beast known as Grendel as it leaves a kingdom in absolute fear and turmoil while the powerful viking warrior, Beowulf is called upon to rid them of the monster's rampage. If this is successfully accomplished, the king will no longer have to sacrifice the children to keep it at bay. After a few failed attempts, the creature is slain, but it's angry and vengeful mother soon attacks, leaving it up to Beowulf to, again, lend his mighty acts of bravery and strength to defeat it. "Grendel" looks like it was shot on a tiny budget and the CG effects are terrible. Like I said, this movie is absolutely needless.
+++++++++
A: negative

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:I have NOT seen this movie, but I must. Having read all three of Thor Heyerdahl's books (Kon Tiki, Ra and Aku Aku) I am actively looking for a copy of this movie.

The thesis that Peruvians migrated to Polynesia is alive and well. Considering that this crew had NO GPS, and only an old fashioned valve (tube) radio with a 6-watt output, their voyage was heroic to say the least.

Please reply to this message if you can tell me the location of a copy of this video.

I would be interested in buying it.
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:It's sort of hard for me to say it, because I so greatly enjoyed both "Targets" and "Paper Moon", but I thought "The Last Picture show" was a somewhat fascinating but overly self-indulgent film. Its main positive, as far as I'm concerned, is the stunning photography. But for me the film had nothing to offer beyond surface beauty (and a kind of hidden beauty, at that). The characters were very hard to relate to or to care about. Basically you had this very slow pace and this naturalistic style of acting, but it was all there to prop up a very formulaic and predictable story, complete with all the trappings one would expect from any small town melodrama -- everything from the boy cheating with his teacher's wife to the handicapped kid who everyone picks on. It was like "American Graffiti" without the joy of life.

Some might say this film is more realistic -- nowadays a lot of people seem to think that realism is the only virtue a film can possess. But for me the film was simply oppressive, and I want to see it again about as badly as I'd like to spend a few hours in that miserable town the characters live in.

Maybe this film really just belongs to its time -- perhaps if I'd seen it in 1971 I would have been impressed by its novelty, just by seeing something different on the screen. But that would basically assume that I had never seen anything like, say, Godard's "Breathless". Maybe the overt references to classic films would have appealed to the movie geek in me and helped me to overlook some of the film's weaknesses. But in the post-Tarantino world that hardly seems unique or special either.

It is interesting though how he uses the films in the film to give his own film more depth. We see 3 films as I recall in the picture show. First we see Vincente Minnelli's "Father of the Bride" -- Liz Taylor's exquisite looks provide a contrast to Sonny's girlfriend and Minnelli's studied upper-middle class milieu contrasts to the character's "real life" surroundings in a similar way. Later, clips from Howard Hawks' "Red River" emphasize the theme of a broken friendship between a mentor and a protege. It really just reminds me that Bogdanovich is kissing his own mentor's butt, much as he did if I remember correctly by selecting a Hawks film as part of his own on-screen reverie with Boris Karloff in "Targets". I guess in 1971 this kind of thing was new but looking at it today it just seems self-indulgent, like so much of the rest of this film.

Ultimately, I'd rather see another film by Hawks, Ford or Minnelli than to have Bogdanovich's film remind us of why they were so striking in such a less-than-subtle way. Maybe he intends to remind us of the giants whose time had passed -- all he really does is remind us how small he and most of his contemporaries are in relation.
+++++++++
A: negative

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:The barbarians maybe's not the best film that anybody of us have seen, but really????........It's so funny......I can't discribe how mutch I laughed when I first saw it..The director really wanted to do a serious adventure movie, but it'sso misirable bad....so bad that it's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen......so my advise is that you should see it.....and if you alredy did, se it again!!!!!!!
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A:
positive