Q: I saw this recent Woody Allen film because I'm a fan of his work and I make it a point to try to see everything he does, though the reviews of this film led me to expect a disappointing effort. They were right. This is a confused movie that can't decide whether it wants to be a comedy, a romantic fantasy, or a drama about female mid-life crisis. It fails at all three.

Alice (Mia Farrow) is a restless middle aged woman who has married into great wealth and leads a life of aimless luxury with her rather boring husband and their two small children. This rather mundane plot concept is livened up with such implausibilities as an old Chinese folk healer who makes her invisible with some magic herbs, and the ghost of a former lover (with whom she flies over Manhattan). If these additions sound too fantastic for you, how about something more prosaic, like an affair with a saxophone player?

I was never quite sure of what this mixed up muddle was trying to say. There are only a handful of truly funny moments in the film, and the endingis a really preposterous touch of Pollyanna.

Rent 'Crimes and Misdemeanors' instead, a superbly well-done film that suceeds in combining comedy with a serious consideration of ethics and morals. Or go back to "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan".
A: negative
Q: Overall an extremely disappointing picture. Very, very slow build up to the basic storyline. The role of Maria Schrader searching for her families secret past. (Every take seems to last forever. There is really no rhythm in the film.) ***SPOILERS*** Her Mother Ruth is rescued from the Nazis, by a German woman, played by Katja Riemann. The entire character of Ruth is so one dimensional, so stereotypical. ***SPOILERS END*** The film cuts back and forth between present day New York and Berlin and Berlin 40s something. Please when you do that, give the audience an indication of what time exactly the story takes place. There is never a clear indication of time very annoying. Worst part is, the end. ***SPOILERS*** The entire show and jabber about the Jews being so terribly tormented, simply by a bureaucratic accident! Give me a break. That's how the Jews got out of the Rosenstrasse? The question of who freed the Jews is NEVER answered. Was is Goebels who freed them? Did Lean Fischer sleep with Goebels? In Venice the film won an acting award for K. Riemann, why? I have no idea. Must be the Jewish theme
A: negative
Q: John Rivers' life as an architect and family man has taken a turn for the worst when his wife has disappeared and has been concluded dead after a freakish accident that involved changing a tyre on her car. During the days she has been missing, he confronts a man that's been following and he tells him that his been in contact with his dead wife from the other-side through E.V.P - Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Naturally he doesn't believe it but then hear gets weird phone calls from her phone and so he contacts the man to find out more about E.V.P. Soon enough John is hooked onto it, but something supernatural doesn't like him interfering with the dead, as now other then contacting his wife, the white noise is foretelling events before they happen.

Since this DVD has been sitting on my shelf for a while now, I thought I better get around to watching it since it wasn't my copy. But then again I don't think the owners were in a hurry to get it back, as they haven't question me about it. Oh well. So I decided to give it a play, as I was in an undemanding mood. After hearing and reading all the bad press on it, I wasn't expecting anything remotely good, but I was kept entertained for 90 minutes. Well, more so the 60 minutes, as the last half-an-hour was pretty much a blur of confusion. The film is nowhere as good as it could have been, but the time breezed by quick enough even though it's a rather tepid supernatural thriller. I thought it wasn't all a waste. The first hour I found some effective sequences rather interesting and there's a spooky awe generated with a slow progression of subtle stillness and tragedy that haunts you, but sadly that comes to a crashing halt later on in the film. That's when the predictably forced jump scares come into their own and somehow it just doesn't fit in with the context. It becomes rather hectic, loud and very muddled with its MTV style editing and kinetic camera-work that gets to close into the action. I couldn't understand what was going on within choppy and abrupt climax. The whole explanation how everything fits into the bigger picture is pure hokey. It's a very unsatisfying conclusion because it goes for something big, but hits rock bottom. I thought they did fine job up until that point with the lighting and showy camera-work. Other then the distinctively stark lighting, the score kept this flick atmospherically gloomy. All of it is very slickly done with its glossed up and fancy hardware, which makes it come across as very sterile and empty.

You can easily see that the film's heart is in the technical components and not in expanding the characters and story. There's just no connection and lasting sentiment within this flimsy material. After a while, it just tries too hard to convince you that it falls into manipulative thrills and popping in many blood-curdling stuff from beyond the grave. It just got rather repetitious watching someone watch a fuzzy TV screen after while. The E.V.P machine was the star on the show. Well, it did have more impact than the limp performances. Michael Keaton is more than capable actor, but lately his disappeared off the map and here he provides a modest performance as the dangerously obsessed John Rivers. He really deserves much better, though. Everyone else is pretty brittle and forgettable. Not because of the performances, but of the lack of depth in their characters. This clunker wasn't bad to begin with, but it does go pear shape by falling away drastically.

I wouldn't care to see it again and I wouldn't recommend to anyone, unless you got a interest for the subject matter and enjoy the recent crop of Hollywood produced horror/thrillers. It's just a damn shame that this over-produced flick couldn't put it together successfully, as it had promise in its idea and a more than decent cast on hand. I didn't hate it, but what a disappointment.
A: negative
Q: from the start of this movie you soon become aware that the name of the film has nothing to do with the movie itself from watching a naked woman being chased by people in very silly masks to servants running round in the worst clothing I've ever seen and all this in subtitles makes this the kind of movie you should think twice about seeing and as the film slowly moves along you soon realise that the vampire is not a vampire you got to wonder where the title came from some parts of the film made a bit of sense with Pierre and is father but as the film gets to its really silly ending you have got to think why end a film this way and surly they had a better ending if only in there heads this is not a film to watch basically
A: negative