Q: I don't know why, but i thought i've seen this movie before. Maybe it was the name, maybe it was the way poster looked, i don't know. Anyway, it was quite promising in the beginning. And even throughout the whole feature there were some bright moments. Maybe its because i'm not a huge fan of the horrors, and i don't watch them a lot, but this one actually looked fresh sometimes. But the rest of it is not so good. Laughable at times. The movie is slow paced, sometimes you will get so bored you'd forget what was the story about. Characters are not great either. All of them. The butcher is OK, seems creepy and crazy enough. Although i didn't get what were those weird looking things on his chest (that whole scene just looked fake and kind of out-of-the-blue), and why he was collecting those in jars at home? The main lead is plain. His character is really hard to believe in, and very undeveloped. But i guess thats scenarists fault. Like why he cried when he was taking pictures of his girlfriend? Side cast is bad too. But the main thing i hated in this movie was the girl. My god, when will women in horror movies have any brains? Its ridiculous. The girl finds out that a maniac took her boyfriends camera, tries going to police, that fails, and then she thinks of the best idea ever. Why don't we just go and take it! I know where the maniac lives! Yup! Thats swell! And then look for the camera in the bathroom! Why not? And then walk in the room, see a bag that was not there before, and just have a look inside. Maybe camera is there? Not there. But loads of interesting stuff. Shiny. Mmmm. To realize that bag means that the butcher came back is too hard for her tiny tiny brain. Then of course the never ending "falling while running away" trick, that really made it look bad. Then, to put the final nail into the character, in the end of the movie, she walks into the wagon FULL with dead bodies hanging feet up, screams "Noooo" like she just ripped her Gucci bag, and walks further into the wagon... Jeez. Come on. No one else thinks its just, well, stupid? Just awful. If her character wasn't so bad, maybe the movie would get another star or two from me. And i would even forgive MMT characters that can take a hit in the head with a steel hammer (that dude in the train who the conductor killed), butcher vests that can protect from bullets, weird and cheap looking monsters in the end (i didn't read Clive Barkers novel, so i have no idea where those monsters came from), the fact that no one cared that hundreds (judging on the skeletons in the dungeon) disappeared in the city, and main character that didn't bleed to death when he got his tongue ripped out (he barely noticed it i guess). Oh, and the predictable ending. Damn, i knew the ending half way in, its just disappointing. The only reason i'm still giving some credit to the makers, is that the movie in general looks better than most of the horrors i've watched past few months. Visual style is nice, some shots were really nice and good CGI that made the killings look really brutal. (although blood didn't look real at all) I guess some people will enjoy it, some, like me, will watch it if there is nothing else to watch, some will absolutely hate it.
A: negative
Q: My wife and I both thought this film a watered-down, made-for-TV (BBC) version of Manhattan Murder Mystery...which is itself good, but not great. The story has little inter- character tension or chemistry, and not much of a plot. Woody Allen's character just sort of wanders around running off at the mouth, and Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johannsson don't have a lot more to do. It's pretty disappointing, I must say. Ian McShane's role is just an expanded cameo appearance.

The first thing that occurred to me was "I wonder how much the BBC had to pay Woody Allen to dislodge him from Manhatttan?" He must've needed the money, and they must have needed his appeal to expand their audience beyond the youth market drawn to the two stars. I'm giving this movie 4 stars instead of 3 because it is unbothersome background noise. If you ever want something to have on while you're knitting or sorting your stamp collection, this'll do the job. I wouldn't pay to rent it again.
A: negative
Q: First, let me say that Notorious is an absolutely charming film, very lovingly rendered of its time and subject(s). Gretchen Mol is utterly, painfully convincing, the very soul of the contradictions smoothly reified by Ms. Page herself. Irving and Paula Klaw are richly drawn as the working-class stiffs they were (having met Paula at Movie Star News in 1990 I can say that Lili Taylor's performance is unimpeachable), and Jared Harris as John Willie (Coutts) is an adoringly debauched genius. Anyone with an interest in the recorded history of American attitudes toward sexuality must see this movie, in a theater preferably, where votes made with dollars count more.

Second, I will allow that I am a producer of material similar to that for which the Klaws would become famous, which is no way affects my estimation of Ms. Harron's work as the splendid piece that it is, but does condition my view of Notorious as an act of political resistance of the first order. Ms. Harron has crafted a work of subtle subversion. Along with V for Vendetta, it is a movie about another time for our times.

Few readers of this site will be aware that the government they will see enacted in Notorious (through transcription of the very words uttered in closed Senate committee hearings) is a very close approximation of the one they live under right now. While Ms. Harron expressly disallows that she has a political agenda appended to this film, her faithfulness to the facts, and the respectful and unsensational way in which she renders them, synchronizes Notorious with the present day. The very acts that Notorious portrays in loving and accurate detail are defined as obscene by the Communications Decency Act, recently brought to the Supreme Court as a First Amendment case and turned back there at the behest of the Bush administration. In other words, the delicate and ineffectual bondage depicted in Notorious is indictable today by Federal prosecutors in whatever (hostile) jurisdiction they choose. Of course, there were no hearings in the Senate or elsewhere on this matter when the CDA was passed. Of course you know nothing about it, because you don't want people in Peoria telling you what you can and cannot look at (likewise, people in Peoria probably don't want me telling them what they're allowed to view). Of course Notorious will never be indicted. It's Hollywood. It's lawyered up. Countless Klaws will, however, continue to be steamrolled by a puritanical bureaucracy that has not advanced its aesthetic, moral or biological composition much in 50+ years.

In addition, Notorious posts no 18 USC 2257 compliance statement, which is mandated by the unnoticed "earmark" recently voted into law. If any media contains images of "sadomasochistic restraint" it is required to make available (ex warrant) records of age and circumstance of all performers. Notorious fails in this regard also.

In addition to being a splendid piece of entertainment and an (nearly) accurate historical document, Notorious will be the litmus against which the Bush Justice Department is itself judged with respect to the 14th (Equal Protection) Amendment and on perhaps several other Constitutional grounds. In this regard alone, a debt of gratitude is owed Mary Harron. You'll be grateful in any case, Constitutional or otherwise, if you see this film.
A: positive