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This is an action Western. James Steart leads an all star cast in the scenic Northwest, which is filmed in great splendor. The scenery and costumes are great. There is action and adventure. Stewart plays a wealthy cattleman who runs afoul of a crooked government in the old Nothwest.<br /><br />The main drawback is the stereotypical cynic that Hollywood has always made into a hero. Even when this movie was made, the cynic was the stereotypical hero, and the one Stewart portrays really has few saving graces. He is kind to his two partners, and that does give him an extra dimension of credibility and likability.<br /><br />However, he is so piggish to everyone else, it is hard to really care for him, or to accept him. He is much like the one dimensional spaghetti Western characters (cut not that bad).<br /><br />Still, the minor characters are quite enjoyable. Walter Brennan, Royal Dano, Harry Morgan, and others make this worth watching. | 0neg
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This is the worst sequel on the face of the world of movies. Once again it doesn't make since. The killer still kills for fun. But this time he is killing people that are making a movie about what happened in the first movie. Which means that it is the stupidest movie ever.<br /><br />Don't watch this. If you value the one precious hour during this movie then don't watch it. You'll want to ask the director and the person beside you what made him make it. Because it just doesn't combine the original makes of horror, action, and crime.<br /><br />Don't let your children watch this. Teenager, young child or young adult, this movie has that sorta impact upon people. | 0neg
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Ah, Channel 5 of local Mexican t.v. Everyday, at 2:00 a.m. they air Horror movies from the 70's to early 2000's. It was "Return To Cabin By The Lake" the movie that aired yesterday. I regret for watching it.<br /><br />The original "Cabin By The Lake" was a regularly popular low budgeter and it was good accepted. The problem is that this sequel is horrible, not even unintentionally funny and tries to imitate the original. Ugh. The plot is really stupid in all the sense of the word.<br /><br />The movie at some points looks like a soap-opera because of it's absurd dialogs, cinematography, and direction.<br /><br />My advice is : avoid this one at all costs. It's a movie that it shouldn't be watched by anyone. Not even for lovers of mediocre film-making.<br /><br />You have been warned. | 0neg
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Preposterous sequel stretches credibility to a great degree as diabolical sociopath Stanley Kaldwell returns this time infiltrating the movie production of the novel he wrote for the garden drownings, assuming the identity of a second unit director he murdered.<br /><br />Film pokes gleeful fun at Hollywood, with a tongue-in-cheek script taking shots at tyrannical directors who sleep with their actresses(..looking for a way up the ladder)and dislike anyone challenging them for complete spotlight. Brian Krause, who I thought was dreadful, overacting to the point where the satire felt incredibly forced, portrays the loud, temperamental director who doesn't like the fact that his second unit director and screenplay writer, Alison(..played by Dahlia Salem)seem to be taking over the production. Andrew Moxham is Paul Parsons, who is the brother of a victim from the first film. The film's dark humor this time takes the idea of a serial killer actually operating as director of a movie set and exploits it for all it's worth. Nelson again ably slides back into his psycho role without any difficulty, with Stanley as clever as ever, using his brains to commandeer a film production, killing whoever he has to in order to maintain full control of his work, letting no one stand in his way..that is until Alison realizes who Stanley really is. Alison is the type of ambitious writer who wants to capture the essence of her subject..what motivated Stanley to kill, why would he do such a thing, and what led such a man down this dark path? The humor of Alison actually working with that very man is also part of the satire at the heart of this dark comedy thriller. Of course, you get the inevitable showdown between Alison and Stanley, with a really ridiculous, unbelievable conclusion regarding the killer's fate(..quite a hard pill to swallow). Unlike the first film, which was photographed with sophisticated polish, director Po-Chih Leong uses unnecessary techniques which are not needed(..such as shooting an all kinds of weird angles, slow-motion in a sepia color, and several instances which are captured on video)and rather annoy instead of impress. This sequel, to me, just wasn't on target as much as the original, with a lot of the humor less effective and more obvious. | 0neg
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Return to Cabin by the Lake just.... was lacking. It must have had a very low budget because a fair amount of the movie must have been filmed with a regular video camera. So, within the same scene - you'll have some movie-quality camera shots AND simple video camera shots. It makes for a very odd blend! I think they should have found SOME way to not do the "home video" type effect! <br /><br />I think it's worthwhile to see it IF you have seen the original CBTL because then you can compare and see the differences. But if you haven't seen the original CBTL.... you'll never want to see it if you see this one first! It will probably seem way too cheesy and turn you off from even caring about the original one. | 0neg
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This movie was made-for-TV, so taking that into account, I'm not going to rip into it as hard as I would a feature film. The script is sub-par, but it does succeed in being mildly humorous in spots, whether it means to be or not. The acting is mostly over-the-top, but that is true for many lower-budget movies.<br /><br />The aspect of this movie that I really hated, though, was that 90-95% of it is shot on film, but in random places, there will be 5-10 seconds where the footage is shot on video. You can tell because there is less contrast, the colors are less vivid, and the footage is clearly 30 frames per second instead of film's 24 frames per second. I'm not sure if maybe these scenes had to be shot later and at that time they didn't have the money to shoot on film (I assume this is why, anyway), but it is disorienting and really makes the film look shoddier than it had to look.<br /><br />Anyway, I've definitely seen worse movies, but I definitely wouldn't say that I enjoyed this movie and I can't recommend that anyone see it. | 0neg
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IF you are planning to see this movie, please reconsider. I don't usually post my comments about something I've seen on television, but this one was such a waste of my life that I needed to do something productive to get that bad taste out of my mouth. Critiquing this movie would take far too long as there are so many things wrong with it. I will just simply say, please do not ever see this movie. It was a complete waste of my time and it WILL be a waste of yours. Anyone that wrote a positive review of this movie is one of two things; utterly inept, or working for the company that produced it. Again, I guarantee that you will indeed regret seeing this movie! | 0neg
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<br /><br />I saw this on the Sci-Fi channel. It came on right after the first one. For some reason this movie kept me interested. I don't know why, stop asking.<br /><br />---SPOILERS--- Okay... It was cheesy how this guy got involved with the making of the movie. In the first movie, he had a "reason" to kill people, but in this sequal, half of the killings/attempted killings were basicly for no reason. Stanley killed the director due to creative differences, he captured the co-writer due to creative differences, but what was the deal with trying to kill off the cast? No cast, no movie. He wanted it to "look real when they died"? If this was supposed to be such a high budget movie, use the special effects, MAN. Of course like the first one, the captured girl gets away, and Stanley ends up getting messed up, and dissapears. Woooooow (sarcasm). This movie HAD potential. And the saddest thing of all... the really sad part... I would watch a "Cabin by the Lake 3". Only because I like Judd Nelson, and he's the only good part about this sequal. | 0neg
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I watched Cabin by the Lake this afternoon on USA. Considering this movie was made for TV is was interesting enough to watch the sequel. So, I tune in for the airing this evening and was extremely disappointed. I knew I wouldn't like the movie, but I was not expecting to be perplexed by the use of DV (digital video). The movie would have been tolerable if it wasn't for these juxtaposed digital shots that seemed to come from nowhere. I expected the plot line to be tied in with these shots, but there seemed to be no logical explanation. (WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAYBE A SPOILER!!!!) The open ending in Cabin by the Lake was acceptable, but the open ending on the sequel is ridiculous. I can only foresee Return of Return to The Cabin by the Lake being watch able is if the movie was shown up against nothing, but infomercials at 4 o'clock in the morning. | 0neg
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*Possible Spoiler*<br /><br />'Return to Cabin by the Lake' is a useless movie. The acting was not good and the plot wasn't even remotely interesting.<br /><br />'Cabin by the Lake' is a good TV movie. The sequel was not. Judd Nelson was very good in the first film and put a whole lot more into his character than in this. It seemed as if HE wasn't even interested in doing the sequel. His acting was good but it could have been better. I really don't want to comment on the rest of the cast because in my opinion, they're not even worth mentioning. But I'll do it. The character of Alison isn't even hardly shown in the first part of the film. All of a sudden she's the center of attention next to Stanley Caldwell. The role didn't make sense and it should have been thought out a little better. Dahlia Salem was absolutely terrible. Her acting was way below decent and the casting people should have looked for somebody else, anybody else. The director, Mike, was a confusing character. He seemed to have a purpose for being there but it didn't seem like his death was necessary. The acting for this role was good, nothing great but better than Salem's.<br /><br />The plot was real lousy if you think about it. Stanley, who is presumed dead, makes his way onto the set of 'Cabin by the Lake', the movie based on his script. He stumbles upon the director and in a short time, the director is dead and Stanley is running the show. Yeah, out of nowhere the crew is just going to let this stranger come into the picture and finish the film not knowing anything about him. There's some killings, not a whole lot, and the one's that are shown are ridiculous. One of the actresses on the set gets electrocuted while filming a scene. Another character gets chewed up by a motorboat. And one gets tangled up in a plant before drowning. These writers must have been hard up for excitement.<br /><br />I just have to say that I was not impressed with the filming of the movie. The way that it kept changing from looking low budget back to normal started to become irritating very fast. Also, the new cabin by the lake was poorly created. We aren't shown it but only in a few scenes, and the whole thing with the chain in the basement was useless. It worked in the first film only because we were shown the room a lot more, but it didn't work in this one.<br /><br />There were too many characters in this sequel. All of them except for a few had no reason to be there. The acting of what little is showed was really bad and...they just didn't have a purpose in this movie.<br /><br />All in all, 'Return to Cabin by the Lake' is a sequel picking up from where the first left off. 'Cabin by the Lake' I can take but this was just not impressive. Judd Nelson should have avoided this one and so should you. It's nothing like the first and it went entirely too slow. Nothing happened in the first hour and it continued to drag on for the second. Not to mention that the writing was horrible. Put this on only if you need some help getting to sleep.<br /><br />So, we see that Stanley defies death and is still alive and well. By the way he talks, it sounds like there could be a possible third installment to a movie good just by itself. Quit throwing in sequels and we may be alright!<br /><br />(Did the film makers not realize that they showed us how they filmed the lake scenes from the first one? They were all done in a tank. Never, never reveal the secrets of filming.)<br /><br /> | 0neg
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A decent sequel, but does not pack the punch of the original. A murderous screenwriter(Judd Nelson)assumes new identities in order to direct his own novel CABIN BY THE LAKE. Still ruthless killing, but movie seems very tongue-in-cheek. Any humor is not of the funny kind. Total project seems to have the quality of a quickie and at times Nelson is way over the top. This movie is about a script being rewritten before going to the screen...this should have happened to this script. | 0neg
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Return to Cabin by the Lake does not, in any way, stand up to the original. With only one main character (Stanley) returning for the sequal, the film is not even worth the 2 hours of your time. I am a huge fan of the first film, the story line and acting was really good, but this is one movie that I will never again watch. It is basically equal to what the sequals to Urban Legends and Blair Witch were like, but with much worse acting. I've personally seen better acting in soap operas, it is so pitiful that you just have to laugh. I, in no way, recommend this movie to anyone, watching it will just detract from the first. | 0neg
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I thought Hedy Burress (who managed to escape from the watery grave of part one) was going to be in part 2 Guess not. I just think they should of killed her off like in Friday The 13th Part 2 (you know what I mean).<br /><br />This movie like Scream 3, and Urban Legend 2 followed movies within a movie.<br /><br />This was PURE CRAP! The whole Movie within a Movie crap.<br /><br />BAD STAY AWAY! | 0neg
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Viewers gushing over everything including the title sequence (now THAT is funny) would have us believe this is some sort of cinematic miracle, but, trust me folks, this is one of the most embarrassingly bad films you could ever see, and if you're not laughing at it five minutes in, I'd say you've lost your sense of humor.<br /><br />David Niven plays a doomed and bravado-besotted RAF pilot who somehow thinks it appropriate to engage an impressionable (female) air traffic controller in an emotional conversation about love, just as he's plunging to his certain and fiery death. (Isn't it romantic...) Of course, he's spared by a quirk of metaphysical chance, and washes up on the beach, just as this same air traffic controller is riding by on her bicycle. (They immediately clinch).<br /><br />Looking past the bizarre homo-erotic subtexts, (so over the top you really need to refer to them as supertexts, from a naked boy sitting bare-butted in the sand playing the movie's twilight-zone-esquire theme on his little flute, to a celestial courier so campy/queen-y his makeup is caked on more thoroughly than the ladies'), the most bizarre aspects of the movie are how it weaves such bad caricatures of national and racial stereotypes into a convoluted attempt to argue some kind of point about the universal nature and power of love. We get it--fly boys like girls in skirts and heels, and girls like 'em back, and, apparently, all you have to do is cry a little to make it noble enough for your movie to get 10 stars on IMDb...<br /><br />As for the quality of the production, the continuity/editing is poor enough to induce cringing, and the lighting is, perhaps, even worse than that, but you hardly have time to notice because the script is so bad. There are games played with Technicolor, (whatever passes for heaven is in black and white if you can figure out the sense in that), and foreshadowing, (so funny my fellow audience member who usually like movies like this actually cheered and laughed when then the doc's motorcycle finally ended up in a fiery wreck), and freeze-motion, (which is funniest of all because the female lead is so poor at standing still you know the stage hands were guffawing off camera).<br /><br />The best shots are the early ones on the beach, but, after that, it's all downhill. The (moving like an escalator is moving) staircase is hardly the Odessa Steps, to say the least, and I'd really caution anyone from feeling like they'd have to see this lame attempt at movie-making on their account. The movie overall is bad enough to be funny, and that's about the best thing I can say for it. | 0neg
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I saw this movie recently because a friend brought it with him from NYC. After 30 minutes, I said to him," You've got to be kidding. Is this some sort of joke?" He thought it was good. I told him that I thought it was probably one of the silliest movies ever made. "What was it supposed to be?" I asked. "A propaganda movie made for children?" The plot is stupid. The acting is the worst ever for most of the principals and frankly people who look at this sort of tripe and think it has anything to do with life, love or even afterlife, of which it offers an incredibly idiotic view...need some psychiatric help. Please, if someone tries to get you to stick this in your DVD or Video player, consider it like you would a virus introduced into your computer...it won't destroy your player but it will destroy your evening. If they had made Razzies in the '40s, this would have won in every category. (PS. It also goes under the dubious sobriquet of "Stairway to Heaven.") | 0neg
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Despite a decent first season this series never came close to realizing its potential. Set as a prequel to the original "Star Trek" series it was doomed almost from the start by an executive producer, Rick Berman, who felt compelled to artificially limit and constrict the definition of what a "Star Trek" series could be (which made this futuristic show increasingly anachronistic from a dramatic standpoint). The actual show-runner, Brannon Braga, didn't help matters by his uninspired and tired rehashing of previous Trek episodes and careless disregard of the franchise's internal mythology (it was painfully obvious early on that he was in it only for the paycheck). Never have I seen a series' that so consistently did a disservice to a cast of talented actors (Jolene Blaylock excepted)last so long. It is as if this entire series was produced in bubble existing outside the contemporary television landscape where the audience (even a Trekker audience) is more demanding and sophisticated in their dramatic wants and desires. Unfortunately it appears as if Berman and Braga have succeeded in convincing the higher ups at Paramount that "Enterprise" suffered from "franchise fatigue" and that its core audience was did not walk away but was driven off. Produce a quality offering that lives up to the high ideals and standards of its predecessors and they (the audience) will come.<br /><br />Simply put, In a TeeVee universe where we are given shows like "Battlestar: Galactica" and "The Shield" the powers-that-be must give the viewing public a "Star Trek" that measures up and is dramatically competitive. It is just that straightforward and easy. | 0neg
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Anybody who has ever been a fan of the original series, or even has a clue about the storyline should be embarrassed by this series. The Borg does not come around until Q brings the Enterprise to the Gamma sector, the Klingons are NEVER seen until Kirk encounters them, the NCC-1701 was the FIRST ship to carry the Enterprise name....need I go on? Berman and Pilliar have made a mockery of Gene Roddenberry's creation. After he died, they only saw $$$$ and just went their own way. No wonder Majel Barrett was in every single episode of star trek until this series. I don't blame her for not being involved with this mess. Poor Bakula. He's a great actor, as are the entire cast. I like them all, but the storyline is tragic and ignores all of the precedents set by the original series. Just check the ratings. I think more people watched Deep Space 9 (which was untimely canceled). | 0neg
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Okay first of all, I didn't sit down to watch the premier of a "Star Trek" Series to see a cowboy flying around in space. this is how a normal Enterprise episode works<br /><br />1 Archer finds a nebula or something aloung the lines of that and wants to take a closer look but it might destroy the ship.<br /><br />2 he sends a shuttle into the nebula and and the shuttle get damaged...<br /><br />in all of the episodes I have seen, all of the problems are happening because of Archer's stupid mistakes. Oh and did you see the preview of one episode showing Archer and T'pol kissing?!?!?!?!?!?!? I was planning to watch that episode but after that I totally gave up on Enterprise and turned to TV right off. Come on!!!! This is star trek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<br /><br />Also what was with the banana slug?? In one episode, Hoshi had a banana slug but had to leave it behind for some stupid reason. Okay fine, little dumb to bring you pet slug in space but whatever. Okay that was what I thought until they left it on a desert planet!!!!! A BANANA SLUG CANNOT LEAVE IN A DESERT!!!!!!!!!!!! How dumb are these writers<br /><br />Any ways, just saying if Enterprise is on DON'T WATCH IT!!!!! | 0neg
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While it's early to say how the series will evolve, I can say that the pilot was less than I thought it would be. There is still potential for the series, however. Of course when I first saw Voyager I thought it had potential, too - but was sorely disappointed. My gut tells me Enterprise won't be as bad as Voyager, however.<br /><br />As for the impressions of the pilot...<br /><br />The pilot had some good ideas and good themes. I liked the introduction. The show's opening credits were interesting, with the progress of exploration and a fitting theme song. Scott Bakula is excellent in the role of captain.<br /><br />Where it fell short for me was largely that the story lacked the "feel" of setting out on a grand adventure. The plot of the episode itself was more a "generic" Trek story with the themes of "exploration" and "first step towards space" merely subplot and subtext. Were you to edit out the references to this being the first deep space mission, the plot would be hard to differentiate between the eras of Enterprise, TOS or TNG. The central plot didn't reflect or do justice to the grand theme of the series.<br /><br /> The plot of launching the first mission would have been grand enough without the "action". Instead of isolated references to the newness of exploration, they could have been the story. Get a little more nostalgic and philosophical about it (oh, for a TV show that once again would make us THINK). Make us feel the excitement of "the wind" and being on "the sea" instead of distracting us with a rescue and a plethora of gunplay. There was WAY too much gunplay.<br /><br />We had the feeling more that humans were the "freshmen" in an established school. New kids on the block, as opposed to venturing into a largely unknown universe. Sadly, the Klingons landed on our doorstep instead of us finding them. That meeting could have been far more historic and far more sociological. Just how DO two such different societies interact? Don't just hint about it, SHOW it!<br /><br />I had to think of it more as `Trek with an akward crew and limited technology' as opposed to `the first brave steps into the unknown'. I wanted to see something newer and fresher. The series promises to have a new concept but so far I haven't seen this new, great concept.<br /><br />I will conclude with reiterating the sentiment that the series has potential. There are some interesting characters. Bakula is wonderful. Blalock has potential. The overall theme is the most interesting since we first saw Kirk in a world before Apollo 11. If only future episodes can do justice to this grand and wonderful theme, we will have a show which will create new legends.<br /><br />You shoot an arrow into the air... Good luck Capt. Archer.<br /><br />To the producers: TAKE MORE RISKS AND MAKE US *THINK*! :-) | 0neg
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I'm not a huge Star Trek fan, but I was looking forward to this. I was intrigued by the pre-hype descriptions of the Enterprise, its cramped-submarine styling and rough-edged technology compared to the Treks we are used to.<br /><br />I didn't see anything all that interesting in this pilot. I found the plot to be convoluted and confusing.<br /><br />I will admit that I did like some of the character development - the depictions of the humans as an 'adolescent' species ready to outgrow their britches was entertaining.<br /><br />And that Vulcan babe had one hell of an incredible rack.<br /><br />But I don't think I'm going to get hooked on this series.<br /><br />3/10 | 0neg
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The earlier part of the film was rather enjoyable but towards the end it became trite. Although Turturro is an actor I generally like, his Luzhin often resembled a bad Rain Man impression and the portrayal of the genius as a semi-autistic man was annoying. Overall it seems as if this film is trying to hard and ends up looking pompous in spite of mostly fine performances. | 0neg
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a movie that attempts to be far smarter than its makers are capable of producing. the movie twists and turns through miriad plot "surprises" at a desperate attempt to kep the audience guessing, offcourse puncturing the "plot" with steamy scenes they thought would help it along.<br /><br />james belushi is involved in this pseudo-intellectual attempt and just sleep walks through the movie. the same applies for the other "actors". the plot is quite silly and tacky. whih in itelf is not such a crime, but towards the end, the tremendous plot-twists get very tiresome and boring.<br /><br />however, the movie does manage to generate some interest in the middle. in all worth a lazy watch on a really boring day, but don't fret if you miss this one.<br /><br />a rather lame 4! | 0neg
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If you can imagine Mickey Mouse as a New York street pimp, or John Wayne as a Communist spy, then you might believe Pat Boone as a juvenile delinquent on his uncle's farm in Kentucky and you could conceivably enjoy this movie.<br /><br />This film is so stupid that it isn't even campy for a mid 1950s sexless love story. And the problem is that Hollywood made such a big deal about Pat Boone's refusal to kiss a woman not his wife on screen before its release that the audience knows he won't kiss Shirley Jones so you cannot build any anticipation for the "screen consummation" of their love. It's sort of like watching a western in which the cowboys don't have guns.<br /><br />The story is pointless. Even the title song is sung with pained enthusiasm.<br /><br />April Love belongs in the worst film bargain bin along with Ishtar and Plan 9 from Outer Space. | 0neg
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I really wanted to like this western, being a fan of the genre and a fan of "Buffalo Bill," "Wild Bill Hickok," and "Calamity Jane," all of whom are in this story! Add to the mix Gary Cooper as the lead actor, and it sounded great. <br /><br />The trouble was.....it wasn't. I found myself looking at my watch just 40 minutes into this, being bored to death. Jean Arthur's character was somewhat annoying and James Ellison just did not look like nor act like "Buffalo Bill." Cooper wasn't at his best, either, sounding too wooden. This was several years before he hit his prime as an actor.<br /><br />In a nutshell, his western shot blanks. Head up the pass and watch another oater because most of 'em were far better than this one. | 0neg
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I have always admired Susan Sarandon for her integrity and honesty in her private life as well as her talents as an actor. I therefor found it strange that she would appear in a film that so distorted that facts. Her character's rescue from the South Pole was done by a Canadian charter company from Edmonton, Alberta flying a Canadian designed and built Twin Otter aircraft. The trip had been turned down by the US Airforce, Navy and Coast Guard as beyond their capabilities. The same company staged a similar rescue a few years later to bring out a man from the South Pole base. I feel that the film fairly represented a very gripping subject and documented a very courageous woman facing a frightening task. I fail to see why the producers would find it necessary ignore the bravery of the rescue pilots and show the rescue plane as a USAF Hercules. | 0neg
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Warning Spoilers following. Superb recreation of the base in Antarctica where the real events of the film took place. Other than that, libelous!, scandalous! Filmed in Canada; presumably by a largely Canadian crew and cast. I caught the last half of this film recently on Global television here in Canada. Nothing much to say other than how thoroughly appalled I was at what a blatant piece of American historical revisionist propaganda it is; and starring Susan Sarandon of all people! I can only assume that Canadian born director Roger Spottiswoode was coerced to make the USAF the heroes of the film when in fact the real rescuers where a small private airline based in Calgary; Kenn Borek Air. | 0neg
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OK first of all the video looks like it was filmed in the 80s I was shocked to find out it was released in 2001. Secondly the plot was all over the place, right off the bat the story is confusing. Had there been some brief prologue or introduction the story would've been better. Also I appreciate fantasy but this film was too much. It was bizarre and badly filmed. The scenes did not flow smoothly and the characters were odd. It was hard to follow and maybe it was the translation but it was even hard to understand. I love Chinese epic films but if you're looking for a Chinese epic fantasy film i would recommend the Promise (visually stunning, the plot is interesting and good character development) not this film. Beware you will be disappointed. | 0neg
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Zu Warriors most definitely should've been an animated series because as a movie it's like watching an old anime on acid.The movie just starts out of nowhere and people just fly around fighting with metal wings and other stupid weapons until this princess sacrifices herself for her lover on a cloud or something.Whether this princess is a god or an angel is beyond me but soon enough this flying wind bad guy comes in and kills her while the guy with the razor wings fights some other mystical God /Demon/Wizard thing.The plot line is either not there or extremely hard to follow you need to be insanely intelligent to get this movie.The plot soon follows this Chinese mortal who is called upon by this god to fight the evil flying,princess killing bad guy and soon we have a very badly choreographed Uwe Boll like fight scene complete with terrible martial arts on a mountain or something.Even the visuals are weird some might say they are stunning and colorful but i'm going to say they are blurry and acid trip like (yes that's a word!).I watched it both dubbed and with subtitles and both were equally bad and hard to understand....who am i kidding i didn't understand it at all.It felt like i was watching episode 30 of some 1980's anime and completely missed how the story began or like i started reading a comic series of 5 at number 4 because i had no clue how this thing started where it was going or how it would end i was lost the entire time.I can honestly say this was one of the worst film experiences ever it was like watching Inu-Yasha at episode 134 drunk...yeah that's right you don't know what the hell is going on.Don't waste your brain trying to figure this out. | 0neg
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This is not so much film as big budget children's television. As far as I can tell, the villain is a giant swarm of chocolate covered espresso beans. This theory seems to be verified by the fact that the subtitles refer to it as 'Insomnia'. When it's first mentioned that a civilization had been wiped out by insomnia, I thought "Wow! A nihilistic martial arts film!" but no such luck. Although you have to consider it experimental cinema when the villain is strangled by an old man's long, white eyebrows. Zu Warriors makes exactly the same amount of sense whether the subtitles are on or off. That's not a good sign. I found the special effects to be somewhere between Ray Harryhausen and Xena: Warrior Princess. Primitive. | 0neg
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Watched this on DVD in original language with English subs. Either the subtitling was very poor or the actual dialog doesn't make much of story and give any character development. There are quite a few HK stars in this but the movie doesn't need their presence to make it better or worse. It's just bad. The bright and colorful scenes done in CG are attractive for the sheer colors and brilliance but it can get overwhelming before long. If anything this makes me think of a child's movie with its nonstop barrage of cg, fight scenes, and crap plot. I'm certain I grasped what took place in the film but the whole delivery of the story was rather lousy. | 0neg
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"Spielberg loves the smell of sentiment in the morning. But sentiment at the expense of narrative honesty? Nobody should love that." - Lucius Shepard<br /><br />"The Color Purple" takes place in the Deep South during the early 1900s, and tells the story of Celie and Nettie, two African American sisters. The film opens with the girls playing in a field of purple flowers, an idyllic haven which is promptly shattered by the appearance of their stepfather. This motif innocence interrupted by men permeates the entire film.<br /><br />The film then launches into a series of short sequences. Celie is revealed to have been twice impregnated by her stepfather, gives birth in a dirty barn, has her newborn child taken away and is forced to marry a local widow named Albert Johnson, a violent oaf who rapes her repeatedly, forcing her to cook, clean and look after his children.<br /><br />All these horrific scenes are given little screen time, and are instead surrounded by moments of pixie-dust cinematography, a meddlesome symphonic score, incongruous comedy and overly exuberant camera work. The cumulative effect is like the merging of a Disney cartoon and a rape movie, a jarring aesthetic which caused Stanley Kubrick to remark that "The Color Purple" made him so nauseated that he had to turn it off after ten minutes. Ten minutes? He lasted a long time.<br /><br />The film is often said to deal which "racism", "sexism" and "black culture", but this is not true. Alice Walker, the author of the novel upon which the film is based, claims to be a bisexual but is actually a closet lesbian. Her book is a lesbian fantasy, a story of female liberation and self-discovery, which paints men as violent brutes who stymie women. For Walker, the only way out of this maze is for women to bond together in a kind of lesbian utopia, black sisterhood and female independence celebrated.<br /><br />Spielberg's film, however, re-frames Walker's story through the lens of comforting American mythologies. This is a film in which the salvific power of Christianity overcomes the natural cruelty of men. A film in which Albert finds himself in various ridiculous situations, moments of misplaced comedy inserted to make him look like a bumbling fool. A film in which all the characters are derived from racist minstrel shows, the cast comprised of lecherous men (always beaming with devilish smiles and toothy grins), stereotypical fat mammies, jazz bands and gospel choirs. <br /><br />This is a film in which black people are naturally childlike, readily and happily accepting their social conditions. A film in which black people are over-sexed, carnal sensualists dominated by violent passions. A film in which poverty and class issues are entirely invisible (Albert lives in a huge house) and black men are completely inept. This is not the Old South, this is the Old South as derived from "Gone With The Wind", MGM Muscals, "Song of the South", Warner Cartoons, "Halleluha!" and banned Disney movies. In other words, it's the South as seen by a child raised on 50s TV. It's all so cartoonish, so racist in the way it reduces these human beings to one dimensional ethnic stereotypes, that black novelist Ishmael Reed famously likened it to a Nazi conspiracy.<br /><br />Of course, in typical Spielberg fashion the film ends with family bonds being healed. This reconciliation was in Walker's novel, but Spielberg goes further by having every character in the story reconcile with their kin.<br /><br />Beyond Walker's hate letter to black men and Spielberg's bizarre caricaturing of black life, we are shown nothing of the black community. We have only the vaguest ideas as to how any of these characters make a living and no insight into how they interact with others in their community. Instead, Spielberg's camera jumps about, desperately fighting for our attention (one of Celie's kitchen contraptions seems like it belongs in a "Home Alone" movie), every emotion over played, the director never stopping to just observe something or to allow a little bit of life to simply pass by. Couple this with Quincy Jones' ridiculously "white" music, and you have one of the strangest films in cinema history: an angry feminist tract filmed by a white Jew in the style of Disney and Griffith, scored by a black man trying to emulate John Williams.<br /><br />Problematic too is the lack of white characters. Consider this: the men in this film aren't portrayed as being rough to each other, nor do they dominate women because they are brutalised by a racist society which reduces their manhood. No, they are cruel by nature. And the women, whether quietly suffering like Celie or rebellious and tough like her sister, persevere and survive only because the men are too stupid to destroy them. A better film would not have focused solely on the oppression of women as it occurs among the oppressed, rather, it would have shown that it is societal abuse which has led to spousal abuse, that enslaved black women are forced to perform the very same tasks as their male counterparts (whilst still fulfilling traditional female roles) and that African American domestic violence occurs largely because of economic factors, women unable to support themselves and their children alone.<br /><br />And so there's a hidden ideology at work here. Late in the film one character tells another that since he didn't respect his wife, she wound up getting severely beaten and imprisoned by whites. The implication is that blacks need to return to their African roots to restore their own dignity and that it is their fault that whites unjustly crush them. ie- Respect one another in your poor minority community and you won't run afoul of the dominant white culture. <br /><br />3/10 - A failure to confront sex and lesbianism, inappropriate musical numbers, countless sequence loaded with extraneous visual pizazz, incongruous comic business, emphatic music cues, and wildly hyped emotionality, all contribute to rendering "The Color Purple" worthless. | 0neg
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You may consider a couple of facts in the discussion to be spoilers.<br /><br />I'm sorry, but Spielberg didn't deserve to win any Oscar for this piece, and I think the Academy was right in that vote. (Other Oscars for best actor nominations and such... that I don't know about. But it would be hard to justify, given what they were told to do and what you see in the final product.) The way Spielberg directs this is so contrived, so meddlesome. While watching this movie a distinction made during a Film as Art course I have taken was screaming at me: "Sentiment is honest emotion honestly rendered. Sentimentality is sugary and unreal, a false view of life." This is over-the-top sentimentality. When in real life to two people ever begin to read out loud in synchronicity, as Celie and Shug Avery do when sitting on the bed going over the letters from Nettie they have found? There are examples of this type of faux behavior throughout the film: all the men crowding around Miss Millie's car and then jumping in unison like a flock of birds taking off when she goes to drive away; Harpo falling through the roofs of various buildings he's working on (a cheap slapstick gag); the whole troop of revelers heading from the Jook Joint en masse to the chapel, as if magically entranced by the choir's singing... on and on. Nothing rings true. I even wondered if Harpo's name was chosen purposefully because it's his wife Sophia's real name, "Oprah," backwards. Spielberg isn't above such "cuteness."<br /><br />It's not that Spielberg is incapable of honestly rendered action and emotion. Schindler's List was amazing, deeply touching for me, and I greatly admire Saving Private Ryan too for its realism, even if the story is a bit contrived. | 0neg
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This is really terrible.<br /><br />The only redeeming feature about this movie is that the next time people ask me what is the worst vampire movie I have ever watched, I would have a suitable reply.<br /><br />I think it is filmed on 35 mm so it is already tacky like hell. I wouldn't have bothered commenting but I noticed some fanboys (probably connected to the movie) had claimed that this was the best movie since the Matrix. Let me debunk the myths and lies.<br /><br />There is nothing good in the movie. Everything yells tacky. The actress is ugly. The fight choreography is the worst I have ever seen. The fight scenes are unbelievably amateurish. Imagine a girl flailing her arms around in a circle helplessly and delivering weak kicks which wouldn't hurt a kitten. Obviously, the director just pulled people off the street to give them roles in the movie.<br /><br />I know the director did not have much budget for the movie but still better movies have been made on smaller budget before. Unforgivable. | 0neg
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Dude, really!!!! where have you guys been the past 20 years, this is shocking in all kind of ways, horror ? This is a joke, there is nothing wrong with being low budget, but this is a laugh, If you want to look at the classics, Freaks of Tod Browning, the victims of Dracula and Frankenstein, the Undying Monster, Ernest Thesiger, Paul Wegener's The Golem and the passengers of The Ghost Train, you can't compare it, it gives it a bad name, bad acting, bad screenplay etc. Total waist of money and free time, have watched a lot of movies, were as horror is my all time favorite, I really am speechless, have nothing more to say that please don't do the effort to watch something so daft, please understand | 0neg
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Well, you know the rest! This has to be the worst movie I've seen in a long long time. I can only imagine that Stephanie Beaham had some bills to pay when taking on this role.<br /><br />The lead role is played by (to me) a complete unknown and I would imagine disappeared right back into obscurity right after this turkey.<br /><br />Bruce Lee led the martial arts charge in the early 70's and since then fight scenes have to be either martial arts based or at least brutal if using street fighting techniques. This movie uses fast cuts to show off the martial arts, however, even this can't disguise the fact that the lady doesn't know how to throw a punch. An average 8 year old boy would take her apart on this showing.<br /><br />Sorry, the only mystery on show here is how this didn't win the golden raspberry for its year. | 0neg
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I'm in Iraq right now doing a job that gives plenty of time for watching movies. We also have access to plenty of pirated movies, this gem came along with 11 other movies, and this is easily the worst I've seen in a long time. I've seen a few other reviews that claim this movie doesn't take itself too seriously, but really, I think that's a cover up for the fact that its horrible. It's not tongue in cheek, the writers really thought they were improving on the movie Blade. This movie is just one notch above Vampire Assassin, which if you haven't seen, i recommend. At least that movie is so unbelievably bad that you'll laugh harder than you thought possible. This is right at that cusp of no redeeming qualities what so ever. from the bad acting, to cliché visual (ie opening credits), to the adobe premier special effects. they couldn't even get blanks for the guns, which may have to do with where the movie was filmed, but if you're going to use effects, make them close to accurate. as for the cast, it seems like they just went to a tae bo class and picked up the first not to ugly chick that walked out. Once again, like Ron Hall in Vampire Assassin, don't let stunt folk act, they can't. Also, the comment about this being a "return of old vampire movies"...no, it's not. This is exactly what all new vampire movies are about. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade, Underworld, they're all about some super star fighting the vampires. This is the newest vampire genre, with bad blood, fake screams, and cheesy over acting. obviously anyone who wrote a good review about this is somehow connected to the movie, or friends of the cast. But what do I care, I paid 33 cents for it. Anyway, to wrap this up, someone in their first semester of film school decided to make a movie, I give them credit because it's better than I could do. Of course I also know I can't make movies so I don't try. I do know how to watch movies though. I work 12 hour nights, 6 days a week, I've seen several thousand in the year I've been out here and this was so bad that half way through i was hoping for a mortar attack. | 0neg
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"Valentine" is another horror movie to add to the stalk and slash movie list (think "Halloween", "Friday the 13th", "Scream", and "I Know What You Did Last Summer"). It certainly isn't as good as those movies that I have listed about, but it's better than most of the ripoffs that came out after the first "Friday the 13th" film. One of those films was the 1981 Canadian made "My Bloody Valentine", which I hated alot. "Valentine" is a better film than that one, but it's not saying much. The plot: a nerdy young boy is teased and pranked by a couple of his classmates at the beginning of the film. Then the film moves years later when those classmates are all grown up, then they're picked off one-by-one. The killer is presumed to be the young boy now all grown up looking for revenge. But is it him? Or could it be somebody else? "Valentine" has an attractive cast which includes Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marley Shelton, Jessica Capshaw, and Katherine Heigl. They do what they can with the material they've got, but a lackluster script doesn't really do them any justice. There are some scary moments throughout, however. <br /><br />** (out of four) | 0neg
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There's one line that makes it worth to rent for Angel fans. Everyone else: this is just a very bad horror flick. The female characters are typical horror movies females. They are wooden, annoying and dumb. You are glad when they are killed off. Long live the strong female character in a horror movie!! | 0neg
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There are so many puns to play on the title of the spectacularly bad Valentine that I don't know where to begin. I will say this though; here is a movie that makes me long for the complexity of the Valentine cards we used to give out in elementary school. You know, the ones with Batman exclaiming "You're a super crime-fighting valentine!"<br /><br />Valentine is a slasher movie without the slightest hint of irony, one of the few horror movies in recent years that ignores the influence of Scream. The villain is omniscient and nigh-invulnerable. The heroes are easily scared when people run around corners and grab them by the shoulders screaming "HeyIjustleftmycoatbehind!" The score is more overbearing than Norman Bates' mother.<br /><br />The flimsy plot follows several childhood friends, now grown up and extremely curvaceous. Since the film gives them nothing else to do, they stand around and wait until a masked stalker kills them one by one. This stalker appears to be former nerd Jeremy Melton, who was constantly rejected by women and beaten by men in high school. With Valentine's Day approaching, the women begin receiving scary cards foretelling their doom. Melton seems like the obvious suspect. Only problem is, as numerous characters warns, in thirteen years Melton could have changed his appearance to look buff and handsome. So (insert terrified gasp here) everyone is a suspect!<br /><br />Here's problem one. In order to have any sense of suspense while watching Valentine, you have to accept a reality in which a high school nerd is capable of becoming David Boreanaz. Nerds don't turn into Angel when they grown up, they turn into older, balder nerds. He's not a terrible actor, but the script, by no less than four writers, gives him and the rest of the cast nothing to do but scream and make out. Denise Richards (the bustiest actress in Hollywood never to star in Baywatch) is especially exploited; most shamefully in the blatant excuse to get her in a bathing suit just before a crucial suspense scene. Note to self: always bring a bathing suit to a Valentine's Day party. Just because it's February doesn't mean you might not feel like taking a little dip.<br /><br />The slasher in Valentine dresses in head-to-toe black with a Cherub's mask. Here's problem number two. The filmmakers clearly thought this would be a disturbing image to have on the head of someone who's whacking people in the face with hot irons. Plain and simple, it's not. Instead, it just made me wonder how a guy with a mask that covers his entire face, including his eyes and ears, can move so stealthily without bumping his shins on chairs or tables. Then again, given the things the Cupid Killer does, maybe he can teleport and his eyes are on his hands. <br /><br />Not only is the movie bad, it isn't even sure who the killer is; the final "twist" is more "Huh?" than "Hah!" When you're not scratching your head you're yawning, then groaning, then searching for the nearest exit. Do not watch this movie. Even if you're alone on Valentine's Day, find something, ANYTHING, else to do. You'll be glad you did. | 0neg
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There is no way to describe how really, really, really bad this movie is. It's a shame that I actually sat through this movie, this very tiresome and predictable movie. What's wrong with it? Acting: There is not one performance that is even remotely close to even being sub-par (atleast they are all very pretty). Soundtrack (songs): "If we get Orgy on the soundtrack then everyone will know that they are watching a horror film!"; Soundtrack (score): Okay, but anyone with a keyboard can make an okay soundtrack these days. Don't even get me started on the "What the hell?" moments, here are a few: Killer can move at the speed of light--door opens actress turns, no one is there, turns back, there is something sitting in front of her.; Out of now where The killer shows up with a power drill, a really big one! The filmmakers get points for at least plugging it in, but can I really believe that the killer took the time to find the power outlet to plug it in. I feel like one of the guards at the beginning of Holy Grail and want to say "Where'd you get the power drill?". I could go on and on about how bad this film is but I only have 1000 words. I will give this 2 out of ten stars. One star for making me laugh and another star for all the cleavage. Seriously, do not waste your time with this one. | 0neg
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In an attempt to bring back the teen slasher genre that was taken away by spoofs like Scary Movie and Shriek if you know what I did last Friday the 13th, Valentine fails. Why did people like Halloween? Because it was original, new and went beyond anything that's ever been done. Why did they like Scream? Because at least it made sense. Valentine is just a stupid slasher-flick that has hardly any gore what so-ever. The plot is so similar to Halloween and Urban Legend it's not funny. And the moment the killer comes on screen, you know who it is, it's just sssssssssssooooooooooooo predictable. The teen slasher genre is DEAD Get over it!<br /><br />0 out of 10 | 0neg
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Firstly, there are some good things about this film, but it's all cliche slasher stuff combined with a teen movie. In the advertising of this movie, that I've seen, a large emphasis was on the fact that Denise Richards is in it, but she's a poor actress, and not as good looking as people try to make her out to be (not that that has anything to do with the movie). And what's with that look she gives everyone? Perhaps it's part of the character, but like I said, the acting... Still, the writing is fine. You know who it is all throughout the movie, and you can almost predict what is about to happen, but not in an irritating way. I think the book it's based on is probably good, judging by the plot line, but next time I'll read the book to find out rather than watch this. | 0neg
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This stalk and slash turkey manages to bring nothing new to an increasingly stale genre. A masked killer stalks young, pert girls and slaughters them in a variety of gruesome ways, none of which are particularly inventive.<br /><br />It's not scary, it's not clever, and it's not funny. So what was the point of it? | 0neg
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Valentine is a horrible movie. This is what I thought of it:<br /><br />Acting: Very bad. Katherine Heigl can not act. The other's weren't much better.<br /><br />Story: The story was okay, but it could have been more developed. This movie had the potential to be a great movie, but it failed.<br /><br />Music: Yes, some of the music was pretty cool.<br /><br />Originality: Not very original. The name `Paige Prescott' Recognize Prescott?<br /><br />Bottom Line: Don't see Valentine. It's a really stupid movie.<br /><br />1/10<br /><br /> | 0neg
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This movie was rented by a friend. Her choice is normally good. I read the cover first and was expecting a good movie. Although it<br /><br />was a horror movie. Which i don't prefer. But no horror came to mind while watching the movie. It was a dull,<br /><br />not very entertaining movie. The appearance of Denise Richards<br /><br />was again a pleasure for the eye. But that's it. We (the four of us)<br /><br />we're a little bit disappointed. But feel free to see this movie and<br /><br />judge it yourself. | 0neg
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The Good: I liked this movie because it was the first horror movie I've seen in a long time that actually scared me. The acting wasn't too bad, and the "Cupid" killer was believable and disturbing.<br /><br />The Bad: The story line and plot of this movie is incredibly weak. There just wasn't much to it. The ways the killer killed his victims was very horrifying and disgusting. I do not recommend this movie to anyone who can not handle gore.<br /><br />Overall: A good scare, but a bad story.<br /><br />** out of ***** | 0neg
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Its plain to see why the makers of Scary Movie found it so easy to spoof these 'teen slasher' movies. They are so unbelievably formulaic. And if Valentine had been released a year or so earlier, I'm sure they would have been spoofing this film too - that's if they found any actual original material to distinguish it from the Screams, I know what you did last summers, and Urban Legends.<br /><br />Valentine offers nothing new to this genre, except a better than usual ending which, of course, leaves lots of room for the inevitable sequel. As always, a masked psychotic killer stalks a bunch of beautiful young women, killing the main character's friends, one by one, in typically over the top style. Lots of T&A on display, no character development, bad acting, and overly elaborate bloodshed.<br /><br />The thing I can't stand about these kind of movies is that they pass themselves off as 'who done its?'. The thing is that they aren't because the motive is only revealed once the killer has unmasked, and tells the main character who's friends have now all been murdered. Usually something that was never made at all clear during the film anyway (eg. main character's mother's uncle's fishing partner kicked his friend's father's dog). Everybody still left alive throughout the film is a 'suspect', but they are more 'Red Herrings' than suspects. As we all know at this point the main character manages an implausible escape and kills the unmasked psycho killer after the motive is revealed.<br /><br />Valentine followed this formula almost to the letter. ***************SPOILER!!!!!! (mini spoiler anyway)*************** In Valentine the motive was not revealed, but more, left for you to think about given that the film didn't quite conclude in the typical 'teen slash' way. The issue is only part resolved, and the goal of the lead killer may or may not have been fulfilled by surviving the bloodshed and killing almost everybody. Will the killer want more, or were the demons truly vanquished?<br /><br />This still didn't make Valentine a good film, instead it simply saved it from being as bad as usual, which still doesn't count for much. To anybody thinking of making another film along these lines, please don't. Originality is so important, and its hard to see any originality coming out of this genre. | 0neg
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***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Are all teen slasher flicks suffering from a drought of originality? It awfully seems so. First of all, this is a noble premise that could've been utilized well. A rejected young nerd who grows up, stalks and murders all the girls who tortured the hell out of him when he was in junior high? Can't say you had nothing to work with. But this film goes through the same motions as all the other recent slashers. Everything from the score to the camera angles allow us to predict exactly when a false alarm is coming and exactly when the killer will strike. We know the pattern by now. These stupid slasher movies push the credibility envelope more and more by the minute. Let me ask you something: Who, in their right mind, is going to surprise a friend of theirs in a dark, dreary morgue in the middle of the night and just surprise her out of the blue while she's all alone and surrounded by corpses? Does that make any damn sense at all?<br /><br />"Valentine" is only occasionally innovative. One good shot involves the butchering of Denise Richards' character. She gets trapped inside a pool and the killer pokes at her with a chainsaw. There's some good songs in the soundtrack, including one cool track by Orgy. The music video is contained in the special features section on the DVD.<br /><br />Even the acting is mediocre at best. The actors all sleep through their roles. Of course, David Boreanaz is often stoic, even in his portrayal as the title character on "Angel." Denise Richards is a fine actress, though, and she keeps a stoneface throughout the movie.<br /><br />"Valentine" is just like you'd expect: pretentious, implausible, forgettable, cheesy and without a good scare in sight. Don't even bother.<br /><br />My score: 4 (out of 10) | 0neg
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here was no effort put into Valentine to prevent it from being just another teenage slasher film, a sub-genre of horror films of which we have seen entirely too many over the last decade or so. I've heard a lot of people complaining that the film rips off several previous horror movies, including everything from Halloween to Prom Night to Carrie, and as much as I hate to be redundant, the rip off is so blatant that it is impossible not to say anything. The punch bowl over poor Jeremy's head early in the film is so obviously taken from Carrie that they may as well have just said it right in the movie (`Hey everyone, this is the director, and the following is my Carrie-rip-off scene. Enjoy!'). But that's just a suggestion.<br /><br />(spoilers) The film is structured piece by piece exactly the same way that every other goofy teen thriller is structured. We get to know some girl briefly at the beginning, she gets killed, people wonder in the old oh-but-that-stuff-only-happens-to-other-people tone, and then THEY start to get killed. The problem here is that the director and the writers clearly and honestly want to keep the film mysterious and suspenseful, but they have no idea how to do it. Take Jason, for example. Here is this hopelessly arrogant guy who is so full of himself and bad with women that he divides the check on a date according to what each person had, and as one of the first characters seen in the film after the brief history lesson about how bad poor Jeremy was treated, he is assumed to carry some significance. Besides that, and more importantly, he has the same initials as the little boy that all the girls terrorized in sixth grade, and the same initials that are signed at the bottom of all of those vicious Valentine's Day cards. <br /><br />It is not uncommon for the audience to be deliberately and sometimes successfully misled by the behavior of one or more characters that appear to be prime suspects, and Jason is a perfect example of the effort, but not such a good example of a successful effort. Sure, I thought for a while that he might very well be the killer, but that's not the point. We know from early on that he is terrible with women, which links him to the little boy at the beginning of the film, but then in the middle of the film, he appears at a party, smiles flirtatiously at two of the main girls, and then gives them a hateful look and walks away, disappearing from the party and from the movie with no explanation. We already know he is a cardboard character, but his role in the film was so poorly thought out that they just took him out altogether when they were done with him.<br /><br />On the positive side, the killer's true identity was, in fact, made difficult to predict in at least one subtle way which was also, unfortunately, yet another rip-off. Early in the film, when Shelley stabs the killer in the leg with his own scalpel, he makes no sound, suggesting that the killer might be a female staying silent to prevent revealing herself as a female, rather than a male as everyone suspects. But then for the rest of the film, we just have this stolid, relentless, unstoppable killer with the emotionless mask and that gigantic butcher knife. Director Jamie Blanks (who, with all due respect, looks like he had some trouble with the girls himself in the sixth grade) mentions being influenced by Halloween. This is, of course, completely unnecessary, because it's so obvious from how badly he plagiarizes the film. The only difference between the killer in Valentine and Michael Meyer's is that Michael's mask was so much more effective and he didn't have a problem with nosebleeds. This stuff is shameless. <br /><br />At the end, there is a brief attempt to mislead us one more time as to who the killer is (complete with slow and drawn out `and-the-killer-is' mask removal), but then we see Adam's nose start to bleed as he holds Kate, his often reluctant girlfriend, and we know that he's been the killer all along. Nothing in the film hinted that he might be the killer until the final act, and these unexplained nosebleeds were not exactly the cleverest way to identify the true killer at the end of the film. Valentine is not scary (I watched it in an empty house by myself after midnight, and I have been afraid of the dark for as long as I can remember, and even I wasn't scared), and the characters might be possible to care about if it weren't so obvious that they were just going to die. I remember being impressed by the theatrical previews (although the film was in and out of the theater's faster than Battlefield Earth), but the end result is the same old thing. | 0neg
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This movie in away was super-clever. It's theme rhymes with every single horror movie ever made. Valentine makes ZERO attempt to be original. What is valentine anyway? It's a bunch of people giving each other the same lame messages that were given to the same people a year earlier. There is nothing original in Valentine. <br /><br />I only saw it once, and in that one viewing here are some of the films it ripped off. 1.Prom Night 2.Carrie 3.Scream 4.Any other horror movie in which somebody is killing somebody.<br /><br />I know there is more, but my mind was slowly turning into a puddle of silk so it couldn't grab them as fast as they came.<br /><br />Valentine had no chance of being a good movie. How come every horror movie has to have a "suprise" killer, people you don't care about because their emotions take a turn every other scene. One minute a nice girl turns into an evil B--ch, then she's an insecure woman, and so on and son on.<br /><br />Normally any horror movie (in my book) can be saved by gore, once again Valentine doesn't have this. It was as if they tried to make it PG-13 but failed, so they left the edit. <br /><br />Do not see this overly-inspired, rip-off unless you hate yourself, and you want to die.<br /><br />*1/2 (3) -J.Leonard Rollins- | 0neg
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Well the reason for seeing it in the cinema was that it was a sneak preview, else I would never have seen this terrible teenage slasher movie. I mean haven't we had enough of this yet? Scream and Scary Movie at least did not take them self serious! The plot sucks, and the acting is the worst I've seen. (Only Godzilla can compare, which is also the only movie that competes in being the worst I've seen in the cinema with this one.)<br /><br />There is so many plot holes in the story, and the girls are so alike, that you don't even now who has been killed, and who has not. (and you don't care.) The only of them I knew in advance was Denise, and she was the most talent less actress I have ever seen in this bad excuse for a movie.<br /><br />Stay as far away from this movie as possible. (2/10) | 0neg
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"In 1955, Tobias Schneerbaum disappeared in the Peruvian Amazon. One year later he walked out of the jungle...naked. It took him 45 years to go back." Supposedly, "Keep the River On your Right" is "a modern cannibal tale". In reality, anyone looking for some insight into cannibalism will be sadly disappointed. The first half of the movie is more like a travel log of New Ginuea, mostly touting the native art. The second half relies on still photos of a Peruvian cannibal tribe, but really that's about it. Unless of course, you are interested in home movies of a Jewish wedding, or Schneerbaum introducing his former male lovers. I give up. Big disappointment and not really "a modern cannibal tale." - MERK | 0neg
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So, where are the cannibals? Those intrigued by the title and the 'real cannibal' appeal of this film will be let down. Instead, we are shown a strange man and his re-visiting of a Papua New Guinea village full of natives, one of whom was his lover several decades prior. The man, Tobias Schneebaum is New York Jewish as they come and somehow, this is intertwined with the documentary as he appears in his yamika in several scenes.<br /><br />There are no real cannibals here: only stories relayed by some of the natives and by Tobias himself. Not all together a bad film. Very interesting and great cinematography. Schneebaum remains highly likable throughout and provides us with a fascinating glimpse into a life that is about as far removed from Western Civilization as one can get.<br /><br />It's just not what it claims to be on the cover and in the plot summary.<br /><br />4 out of 10, kids. | 0neg
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Well, where to begin? I guess I can start with the general complaint regarding the way in which this film is marketed. Call me ignorant for not knowing of Schneebaum's book before viewing the documentary that has been based off of it and decide that I have been living under some kind of a rock, but don't blame me for picking this movie up since the title and the description on the box makes no note of the fact that this "documentary" is actually a companion to said book. Yeah, I felt quite stupid after viewing this little flick seeing as how the reason as to why I sat down to watch it in the first place was to get a good serving of a "Modern Cannibal Tale." I mean, am I a fool for expecting this film to actually cover most of its story on the behavior of cannibalism in jungle tribes? I certainly didn't expect an hour and forty-five minutes of one old geezer kissing his own ass by whining about every little detail of his dull and worn out life. I certainly didn't expect the insipid directing and I most notably did not foresee myself laughing so hard at Tobias Schneebaum and all of his off-putting glory.<br /><br />Schneebaum is indeed unlikable. The old man just rambles and bitches the entire film making the whole picture a personal tale of his even though he isn't even that interesting a character to fill a story. Oh really? He was a cannibal? Ninety percent of the movie is focused on next to nothing regarding Schneebaum's dirty past. The only time that we really get to see some cannibal action is when Tobias finally breaks his little silent treatment about what happened to him in Peru and say that he had "a small piece." That's it, folks. Ninety minutes of bull later and Tobias Schneebaum is a cannibal by three inches. It's like calling a movie "The Life Of A True Don Juan" only to see that the only the time the protagonist of said film did something sexual happened during college when he once played "just the tip." Unbelievable.<br /><br />The directing is, indeed, superbly ghastly as there is no flow or rhythm to the story that is being told. Alright, I understand that I didn't read Schneebaum's volume before watching his celluloid tale of it, but I can still recognize some bad pacing and even worse editing. One minute Schneebaum is talking about cruise ships and tourism and the next he's going on and on about how he can't drive and then jumps to talking about some dead relative or some failed and miserable saga in his life. I mean, Jesus, can you at least slam his back story to the first part; follow up with some stuff covering his homosexuality and then end it off with a hearty look into his visit to Peru? Also: I don't particularly care much for Schneebaum's insipid little quips on life and living, but I at least implore the old man to keep consistent with his ramblings. If I hear a guy talking about how he prefers life in the jungle I don't expect him to suddenly bitch and moan about wanting to go back home twenty minutes later. Absurd.<br /><br />Another note on the directing is the random clips from the story at hand to the small little television appearances in which our hero has appeared. While some might find the clips to be fancy little breaks from the story, the director has overused the gimmick and broken his entire film into pieces by seemingly attempting to place most of the efforts of telling the story on the old reels.<br /><br />The bottom line, here, is that Tobias Schneebaum is a fraud. Pure and simple. I know that I haven't read the book, but I'm still holding on to the argument that this film is totally useless by noting that a good film must stand on its own. This documentary relies way too much on the assumption that the viewer is already an avid fan of Schneebaum's work and instead goes on from that assumption like a supplemental disk found on a DVD. Schneebaum is both arrogant and bitchy, striking a sour combination when mixed with the fact that his story is remarkably un-riveting. If you're looking for a solid piece on the nature of humans and cannibalism, turn away because "Keep The River To Your Right" is an embarrassingly hilarious self-serving rant over a man who is long overdue for a straight-jacket and a gag. | 0neg
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I Am Curious is really two films in one - half of it is the sexual experimental side of Lena and the other half is her curiosity with political/socialism. Whatever the director's intention, the two don't really mesh together. The director should have just stuck with the romantic side of Lena and made a separate movie for the politics. There is a bizarre mixture of political/war rallies, Dr. King, serious political interviews, flopping breasts, and pubic hair. The film feels more like a fictional documentary than a movie. Other than the interesting sex scenes, you'll be bored dry watching this film. Unlike many other reviewers, I think the nude/sexual scenes are overdone for what it is. If you want to see real porn, I'm sure there are better choices. The pervasive nudity is a major distraction from whatever plot there is. I think the cast did a fine job however. They played their parts believably. There is little of the over-the-topness I'm so used to seeing in the American films during this time. | 0neg
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This film, once sensational for its forward-thinking politics and depictions of free love and sexual liberation, has been reduced by time to a mere curiosity. It seems absurd now that this mostly boring little film had been banned and seized by governments in many countries. Given how socialistic Sweden eventually became, the 'radicalism' of its politics, once controversial, appear naive and almost mainstream four decades later. And its sex scenes, at one time the subject of sensational obscenity trials, look pretty tame in a modern context. Nevertheless, the film and accompanying documentaries detailing its many controversies and influences remains marginally watchable as an early reliquary of 60's youth rebellion. One part of the film that still holds up: its self-consciousness with respect to the 'fourth wall'. Every once in a while, the filmmakers film themselves making the film. The satiric playfulness of this still elicits a chuckle. | 0neg
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The plot line of No One Sleeps is not a bad idea, and the subject matter is of quite a bit of interest. But, throughout watching this film, we were saying aloud, "These filmmakers go to the trouble of finding good locations, the lighting is good, makeup and hair are good...why is the sound so bad?" Throughout the film the sound was echoy, garbled and much of the dialog was unintelligible.<br /><br />There is some good acting in this film, and I think Jim Thalman is really a good actor. This story, with some of the same actors, would have been worth doing as a high-budget film.<br /><br />I just can't reiterate enough - if you have a limited budget, dedicate more to good sound. Sound is as much a part of a film as the image, and it's worth doing right. Could've earned a 6. | 0neg
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Hail Bollywood and men Directors !<br /><br />Really this is the ultimate limit in utter sacrifice made by Indian Woman !!<br /><br />Viewing the current state of affairs in India where The wives are becoming more vicious day by day and are very possessive about their husbands - the Directors ..also can be called Uncle Scars (refer movie The Lion King) came up with a very new concept on how both the kept and the wife can live together happily ever after sharing everything between themselves ...including the spermikins !!<br /><br />Story line : Married couple - very happy - but accidentally a mishap happens and wife has a miscarriage - lost the foetus along with the capacity of ever becoming a mother !<br /><br />Now in in India, the in- laws usually drive away the daughter- in- law if she fails to give them an heir ! So the wife hits upon a major plan - surrogate mother...but the scientists intervened - "Sure artificial insemination" - NO said the artist (Director actually) - "Neighbourhood will come to know that the daughter - in - law is barren so they are going for surrogate mother !!<br /><br />Neighbours ! society !! gosh the same ones who watch Fashion TV day and night - watching girls between the age group of 14 to 40 ...al in bras and panties - well those neighbors suddenly take an upper hand in family planning and decision making !!<br /><br />SO the wife sends away her husband to a beer bar where girls are dancing on the stage - all mostly uneducated and illiterate - but men love such women as they can satisfy their egos a lot !<br /><br />He hires the lead dancer in the pub - asks her to bear his baby - in exchange for money - she agrees - she comes home - becomes pregnant - wife and kept - both co-exist in the same house - in the mean time the prostitute also gets a taste of household life - so much caring people around - she misses them all and cries silently !! In the mean time - no one in the family comes to know that the real daughter in law is roaming around with a pillow beneath her petticoat !!- the mother or other elderly people never took her for check-ups - nor did they try to feel the baby's movements in the womb !! | 0neg
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This movie is traditional bollywood fare as far as the star power, sentimentality and love triangle of emotions. What really bothered me about this movie was the makers' absurd notion of surrogate mother. A whore who conceives a child with someone after have sex with the man (of the family desiring a child) is not a surrogate mother. Neither is she a good candidate for a surrogate mother. I have seen Indian movies and television shows that made 10 to 15 years ago that dealt with this issue more intelligently. The whole concept of the movie is ridiculous and absolutely implausible. I realize that most bollywood movies aren't meant to be plausible, but they don't pretend to be either. This movie wants us to emote along with the characters, but this can't done with such a ridiculous, contrived conflict. I would have expected better from Abbas and Mustan. | 0neg
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I wonder if there is any sense of sense in this movie. Its a big joke. Good.. Its entertaining .. You get to see the most stupid plot played very seriously in the form of a film .. I wonder which audience group this movie is basically targeted to.<br /><br />Priety (a pros) plays a surrogate mom for a happy couple Salman/Rani who want a child but can't. I wonder how it would be if this drama was a real-life take-off from a real couple's life.<br /><br />Rani appears happy with another pretty lady in her house who has been brought in to make a child for her & Salman. She cares for Priety and tries pushing her husband Salman to Preity so they may have some romance. When will the audience get fed up of Salman's nakhras.<br /><br />Though a good past-time, this movie is unbearable. Absurd. | 0neg
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The TV guide calls this movie a mystery. What is a mystery to me is how is it possible that a culture that can produce such intricate and complex classical music and brilliant mathematicians cannot produce a single film that would rise above the despicable trash level this film so perfectly represents. This is Bollywood at its best/worst, I honestly cannot tell the difference. Nauseatingly sweet, kitschy clichés on every level, story-line, situations, dialog, music and choreography. To put it bluntly, you must be a retard to enjoy it. I watched it to satisfy my cultural curiosity, but there were times when I had to walk away from it, because I could not take it any more. The only redeeming quality of the movie is the exquisite beauty of the leading actresses. <br /><br /> | 0neg
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... but the keyword here is "usually." I have been known to adore movies EVERYONE thinks are dumb. But in the world of B-rated movies, THIS one is Z-rated. Absolutely ridiculous. The thing I respect about most of my favorite B-rated movies are that they don't take themselves too seriously. The makers of movies like that sort-of treat the movie lightly, even if it's a heavy topic. I get the impression, however, that the producers of this movie took themselves way to seriously, like they were putting together a 10-star classic, complete with poor attempts at poignant lines and dumb camera shots. Nevertheless, despite all this, I STILL gave it 4 out of 10 stars, as I am biased towards movies like this. If you're a B-rated fan, however, I would try too hard to find this one. | 0neg
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Don't even ask me why I watched this! The only excuse I can come up with that I was sick with Bronchitis and too weak to change the channel. :) It's too terrible for words, the movie that is, not the Bronchitis. The acting is deplorable, Richard Grieco hams it up as a trigger-happy, gun-slinging serial killer with a penchant for knocking off cops. Nick Mancuso phones in a performance as the cop on his trail and Nancy Allen manages to put in the only sympathetic role in the entire film. The script is dismal, peppered with clichéd lines, "Are you ready, Pardner?" purrs Richard Grieco to every single one of his victims. Dire. Avoid. | 0neg
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The French film "Extension Du Domaine De La Lutte" directed by iconoclast film maker Philippe Harel is based on the book of the same name written by a controversial writer Michel Houellebecq.He has also worked on this film's scenario.According to British cinema magazine Sight and Sound,it is also known as "Whatever".This film has been hailed as a breath of fresh air for French cinema due to its not so common theme of sexual politics and its implications on two stupid information technology workers.The film is marred by its much too evident voice over which introduces us to the main character.This makes us viewers feel as if we are watching a book that is bring read. The basic premise of problems related to loneliness due to chronic sexual drought is fine but the film goes out of hand once the hero starts recounting the misery faced by him and his friend.Instead of sticking to its main topic the film veers in other directions leading to its downfall.Beware:some women viewers might find not only the film but even its two heroes as moronic misogynists. | 0neg
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Two years ago, on Berlin Film Festival we watched the Amos Kollek movie "Sue" in the Panorama program, with a wonderful Anna Thomson in the leading part. It's a film about loneliness and sex, and how the one thing is compensated by the other. In the same section on the Festival now we have to complain the superfluous antithesis of Sue, "Extension du domaine de la lutte", which now tries to convince us that loneliness and having NO sex is one and the same problem. But unfortunately we can't sympathize with "our hero" (how he is called by the story-teller), because he is unnecessarily and incomprehensibly tired of company and himself. Own fault, I'm sorry. I can't understand him. Not enough, the writer/director/actor want us admitting to him, that it's not his destroyed self-consciousness or the passivity of his personality, what brought him so far, but the rotten society and its image of sexuality. Yes, there are some deeper insights about gender relations, but we won't follow him so far... And the point is, that there is rather any sign of reflection about his own portion to the fate, having no sex. Who didn't notice yet, it's a quite depressing film...<br /><br />In the beginning, there had been some starts to be more accurate in sketching the situation. At the bed store the "hero" speaks about the hindrances buying a new bed. Perhaps it's too broad getting up the stairs, you have to stay at home half a day... THIS is a satire about a character, who doesn't know taking the life and heart in hands, DOING something... The movie doesn`t follow this path, but handles his characters with helplessness. Nobody believes, that "our hero" is able to instigate Tisserand for a murder. Too dull, too kind, too - passive (not to mention Tisserand's complex; he has an inhibition, but he couldn't be, of course, a murderer of women!). To finish: There are women and the world, it's not a device of a modern sexualized society. Help you as you can, but don't follow the messages and the "wisdom" of this movie, which announces bankruptcy to human relationships, without seizing the real conflicts within. | 0neg
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Blank check is one of those kids movies that could have been a great suspense thriller for the kids but instead it's a tired lame home alone ripoff that isn't worth a dime. Quigley is a criminal who just escaped from jail and gets his hidden million dollars from a big score and then we meet Preston a frustrated kid whose room is taken over by his brothers to start a business and obviously dad treats his brothers better because they make money the same day he goes to a kid's birthday party and since his dad is a cheapo he goes on little kids rides while the other kids go on roller coasters then he receives a birthday card and a check of 11 bucks how cheap is this family? So he goes to the bank to open an account and meets the gorgeous Shea Stanley were her parents mets fans? he finds out he needs 200 to open a account meanwhile quigley gives his million to his banker friend and finds out the bills are marked so he will send a lackey named juice to get the unmarked ones when Preston leaves his bike gets run over by quigley he's about to write a check when he spots the cops and bolts back home his parents scolded him about his busted up bike and gets grounded what? their kid got almost run over and they worried about a bike? So Preston forges a million dollar check via his computer and comes back only to be escorted to the banker thinking that he's juice he gives Preston the money but the real juice came and realized they been duped by a kid! So Preston buys a mansion under the name Macintosh gets a limo driver who says unfunny jokes and goes on a epic shopping spree then he spots Shea and talks about opening his account kid you're loaded and you're talking about opening an account? We soon realized Shea is actually an FBI agent tracking down quigley and his two other accomplice's then he told his cheapy dad he's got a job working for Mr Macintosh and spends the day riding go karts playng vr games and hanging out with his limo driver buddy then he goes out on a date with Shea in a fancy restaurant what a 10 year old wining and dining a 20 something FBI agent? Afterwards he takes her to a street geyser and playing around in the water messing up Shea's 300 dollar dress yet she takes it well if this was a bit realistic she would slap him for messing up her expensive dress so quigley and the others still mad interrogates a little kid and quickly spills the beans and Preston is being chased by quigley in a scene taken from the original script and afterwords he is hosting Mr Macintoshs birthday which is really his birthday when he discovers he couldn't pay for the party he sits in his chair and dad talks to MacIntosh which he doesn't know it's his son he's talking to and talks about Preston should be a real kid and has his whole childhood ahead of him and wants Preston to go home early what? an hour ago you were grilling him about his finances! so Preston asks everyone to leave and sits alone pondering when quigley and the others break in to the house to make Preston pay and so he faces then in a finale that rips off home alone quigley gets spun around in a ball while Preston is driving a go kart juice gets hit in the groin and more antics ensue until the trio get Preston cornered and when it seem all hope is lost Shea and a bunch of SWAT guys come to save the day and so quigley and his crew get sent to jail but is there any hope for Preston and Shea? there is and she kisses him in the lips what? what? what? A grown woman kissed a kid in the lips. come on is she mentally disabled? I mean an FBI agent who knows the country's laws would risk her career to kiss a kid? she could get arrested on the spot! and the most creepiest part of all is that isn't goodbye and she'll see him in 6 or 7 years! oh dear and so he comes home to his family celebrating his birthday so the moral of the story is love and respect can be bought? What are they smoking? The bottom line is that is a waste of time the morals are whacked it's flat as a tortilla the kid is annoying the villains are lame the comic relief isn't funny the brothers are unlikable the dad is even worse the romantic subplot is creepy the plot's shallow and the only saving grace is the cinematography from bill pope which went on to shoot the matrix trilogy and two of the spider-man films so people don't waste your money and go watch home alone instead. <br /><br />This has been a Samuel Franco review. | 0neg
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Blank Check is a movie that I saw on TV one day and like most movies they air on TV Blank Check wasn't that good. First of all no one I have ever met has seen Blank Check and that includes people that grew up in the 90s. Also Blank Check won't be remembered in the 00s either simply due to the fact that it will be overshadowed by pixar's films. I wouldn't call Blank Check a bad film but its not really entertaining either. (Or at least it isn't to anyone over the age of 6) Blank Check isn't a entertaining film because nothing about it is original. Everything just makes you go "what haven't I seen this before?" Blank Check rips off and tries to cash in on everything from Richie Rich to Home Alone (Which strangely enough both have Macaulay Culkin in it) Blank Check isn't a bad movie, but it deserves to fade into obscurity. | 0neg
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I saw this movie once a long time ago, and I have no desire to ever see it again.<br /><br />This movie is about Preston Waters, a hard-lucked preteen, who always seems to be overlooked by his family and who always seems to be short on cash. All this changes when a bank robber runs over Preston's bike and passes him a blank check as compensation. Preston uses the check to withdraw $1 million from the bank (ironically, the money belongs to the bank robber who gave him the check). Preston then buys a mansion and says that he's working as the assistant of a mysterious and wealthy backer named Mr. Macintosh (named after his computer). After that, he just goes crazy with the money.<br /><br />On paper, this sounds like a great idea. However, on screen, it is one of the emptiest movies I've ever seen. For one thing, it's too unbelievable. I know some parts of the movie were meant to be incredible, but I draw the line at a twelve-year-old boy going out with a thirty-year-old woman, and being put in charge of a imaginary person's small fortune. Also, this was a shallow movie with weak acting, a predictable plot line and characters who are less than memorable. The characters were either cheesy, over the top, annoying, or underdeveloped. But "Juice" was a funny character.<br /><br />If you're looking for a good movie to watch with your family, skip this one. | 0neg
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The worst movie I have seen in a while. Yeah its fun to fantasize, but if that is what you are looking for, I suggest you see Brewsters Millions. This was just terrible and corny and terrible at being corny. Unless you are five or like terrible movies, don't see this one. | 0neg
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Blank Check is easily one of the worst films of the nineties. The plot is completely pointless; its overtones of lonliness are pathetic. Do you really believe a twelve year old acting as a personal assistant for a millionaire could accomplish everything in this film, like buying a mansion for a mere $300 grand. The notion, let alone the bargain-basement price, will only be believed by the most gullible viewers. Please, respect your intelligence and don't watch this awful, awful film. | 0neg
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I almost called HBO and demanded my money back for the month just because they've been airing this movie. I can just see the movie execs sitting around going, "Okay, we need to come up with something that's just like Home Alone, only we'll add a bunch of cash for the kid, hire cut-rate actors, and oh yeah, we'll make it a lot less funny!"<br /><br />Okay, maybe not the last part, but that's basically what you've got here. Not even worth seeing if someone else rents it. And as a movie for kids? Forget it. I wouldn't let my kids see this, not necessarily because of bad-taste jokes, but because I wouldn't want them to say, "What were you thinking showing us that lame piece of garbage, Dad?!?!" | 0neg
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This movie is really goofy! I saw it as an 11 year old, and even then I thought it was pretty ridiculous! I would only recommend this film to kids under the age of 12. I really didn't care for it, but I do think that it answers some very good questions that kids need to be aware of, such as: 1)Does money buy happiness? 2)Should I lie (to my parents) about things I think they wouldn't approve of? 3)Does money buy friendships? 4)Is money everything? 5)Shouldn't I tell my parents when someone is trying to hurt me? Granted, these are very unrealistic situations, but I do think that if parents discussed these issues with their children, maybe they should watch this video as well, in order to show/scare their kids that lies have the potential to get you hurt. | 0neg
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A young boy comes into a lot of money and promptly begins to live it up. Unfortunately, the man whose money it really is happens to be very bad. He wants his loot back. When he discovers who has the bucks, he begins trying to get it back. He keeps getting foiled by this little kid who is just lucky enough to keep from falling into the evil man's hands. Sounds familiar, I'll bet. Very predictable, not interesting at all. Come up with something a bit different, ok guys? | 0neg
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Bad Actors, bad filming, choppy dialog, shallow characters, but then again it was a bad premise in the first place. Basically, an 11 year old who is bullied because he has very little money is given a blank check by a moronic criminal. Of course, the 11 year old happens to possess enough technology and intelligence to purchase a house, cash a check for 1,000,000 dollars, and even foil three bumbling idiots, reminiscent of the three stooges. <br /><br />Preston Blake is an annoying, obnoxious, boy, who decides that, when written a blank check by a complete stranger, he will take advantage of the situation as best as he can. In other words, he wanders into a bank, <br /><br />hands a teller a check he makes in his printer, and miraculously walks out with a million bucks in cash. Preston is also apparently capable of reaching incredible speeds on his bicycle, due to the fact that a man driving a Jaguar after Preston and his 10-speed could not catch him, even when Preston jumped a row of cars.<br /><br />Of course, with every hokey adventure movie, there has to be hot heroine. In this case our hot heroine is a child molesting FBI agent who dates the eleven year old Preston, and promises another date when he turns 17. <br /><br />However, the absolute worst aspect of this film was not its casting, nor its sloppy dialog, such as "The only other way I could think of skinning a cat is to stick a hose up it's butt and then pick up the fur". It was, rather, the entire fact that nobody in the entire film seemed to realize that the FBI does not give a damn about random people . What I have failed to explain is that Preston uses the alias "Macintosh" to masquerade as an entrepreneur of sorts. Of course, the FBI finds this intriguing and sends our young heroine after Preston, who uses his 11-year old wit to first scream when lobsters fall on his face, then treat her to hamburgers, finishing with a ridiculous romp through a cemented area where water jettison's from the ground. Our heroine fails to realize during this whole adventure that the criminal the FBI is pursuing is slipping and sliding right behind the two, as they make their way to Preston's limousine, complete with a 1-dimensional driver who never fails to provide cheap, 3rd rate laughs that the whole family can choke on.<br /><br />Overall: 1/10 is incredibly gracious for this film. I don't see how it only has a 4.4/10. | 0neg
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Bad plot, bad dialogue, bad acting, idiotic directing, the annoying porn groove soundtrack that ran continually over the overacted script, and a crappy copy of the VHS cannot be redeemed by consuming liquor. Trust me, because I stuck this turkey out to the end. It was so pathetically bad all over that I had to figure it was a fourth-rate spoof of Springtime for Hitler.<br /><br />The girl who played Janis Joplin was the only faint spark of interest, and that was only because she could sing better than the original.<br /><br />If you want to watch something similar but a thousand times better, then watch Beyond The Valley of The Dolls. | 0neg
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Larry Buchanan. Yep, same guy who did "Attack of the THE Eye Creatures" and two (count 'em: TWO) conspiracy movies about Marilyn Monroe. He's to blame, here.<br /><br />Adding onto his ever-growing pile of folders left over from Oliver Stone's "eh-I-grew-out-of-it" conspiracy drawer, here's "Down On Us (i.e.- "Beyond the Doors") which is the working definition of historical inaccuracy.<br /><br />Forget everything you THOUGHT you knew about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, says Big Lar', cuz this is the real deal! Y'see, the three big names in rock of the '60s were KILLED BY THE GOVERNMENT because they were subversives or counter-productive to Truth, Justice and the American Way, or sumpthin' like that there. I knew it all along.<br /><br />Anyway, three people (Chatman, Meryl, Wolf) who look eerily like their real life shadows (that is, if you completely close your eyes, turn your backs and walk five miles away from them) show that instead of their recorded deaths, the good old US of A put hits out on them! Yep, it's the truth!<br /><br />Man, I cannot believed I watched this movie. It's facts, when not stretching credibility to the snapping point, are ludicrous; the acting makes TV commercials look like high drama and if you honestly watch it through to the end, you deserve the "twist" ending. You really, really do; I swear. Genius.<br /><br />But like the man said: "Rock and roll is dead - long live rock and roll."<br /><br />Not this flick, though.<br /><br />No stars for "Down on Us". And that's the movie audience describing the film, by the way.... | 0neg
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what ends up killing this movie is its self-consciousness, among other things. here's a short list: 1. irreverent behavior. when the beatles came over and injected their brand of "quirky, irreverent" behavior/humor, it was greeted as fresh. that was over 4 decades ago. get over it.<br /><br />2. false sophistication. spewing out base, quasi-socio-political-isms is hard ground to make work comically. ask woody allen.<br /><br />3. the post-modern "i'm hard on this phony world and yes, i recognize it in myself" snake eating itself - used as illustration with another animal in the film itself! - is such a retread.<br /><br />4. smarmy, smug drollness.<br /><br />5. amateurish writing, acting, direction... ever seen student films? a victim of itself, about the only thing i can say positive is that it at least has a sense of itself, and sheesh, now i'm getting caught up in the self-reflexive thing that it posits as worthwhile, of value.<br /><br />but towards... what? ultimately, it just rings as hollow as any other pretentious piece - hey, ever see woody allen's take on bergman, ie: "Interiors"??? well, this just does it more amateurishly. | 0neg
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Not to be confused with the Madonna film "The Next Best Thing", "The Last Big Thing" is a silly, campy, off-the-wall comedy about a man who yearns to start a magazine called "The Next Big Thing" which reviews a variety of up and coming artists. This low budget indie makes "Chuck and Buck" look like a masterpiece. Fraught with lousy acting, poor sets and costuming, etc., "...Thing" has earned some awful reviews and to date has only been nominated for one fringe award. Pass on this one. | 0neg
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After reading the book, I loved the story. Watching the movie I was disappointed that so many changes were made. It is understandable that books and movies differ but it was two different stories, only the names and some of the book's story remained. Read the book and you'll have a better understanding of the movie. The book gives you a better development of the characters. These characters are extremely interesting and make you care about them. The locations were indeed in line with the book's descriptions. Some characters not included. Television has microwaved so many great books and stories, this is a perfect example of that. Input from the author doesn't always insure a good movie but it can help sometimes. | 0neg
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I read the book and really enjoyed it from beginning to end. However, when I saw the movie I was very disappointed. First of all, no disrespect to Deborah Raffin but she was too mature to play a woman of 24/25. The late Christopher Reeve was also miscast-same reason. Will, according to the book,was around 30. I would have love to see a little more exploration of his military life, his friend Red, Elly's trip to see him as that was an important part of the characters' storyline development. Also Miss Beasley was miscast as the book mentioned her being a Plus Size lady. I know the movie didn't have the budget of the "Bridges Of Madison County" which I believe was released around the same time. <br /><br />But to me this was a very poorly made, low budget, miscast movie. As someone mentioned, I wish that Miss Spenser would come out of retirement and write screenplays for her books as they ought to be. She knows her characters better than anyone, I hope that she would consider doing the casting too. The movie let me down! | 0neg
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I've seen my fair share of badly thought-out endings and final twists to films, but I don't recall any film that committed outright suicide like this one did.<br /><br />The film makers were clearly hoping that the great twist would 'surprise' us all.... and it did, but perhaps not in the way the directors had hoped. I was left feeling surprised that Connery, Harris, Fishburn and Capshaw had anything to do with this turkey, individually or collectively.<br /><br />The film up until the final thirty minutes was rather engaging and I like the way the story was unfolding and the nature of the film overall. But once the twist was revealed, the plot holes and inconsistencies were remarkable, the underlying motive for revenge was ill-conceived and the ways things so neatly worked out for Bobby Earl was ridiculously far-fetched. What's worse is that, once the twist was revealed, the remainder of the film became excruciatingly predictable.<br /><br />Harris gave a terrific performance and Connery is like Morgan Freeman in that he never gives a bad performance, even if the movie ain't that great! So all in all, it starts well and the unfolding keeps the viewer interested. The last 30 minutes is one of the most memorable nose dives in the history of cinema. | 0neg
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Paul Armstrong is a liberal, Scottish-born, professor of law at Harvard, known for his passionate opposition to the death penalty, who is hired to take on the case of Bobby Earl, a young black man from Florida who has been convicted of the rape and murder of Joanie Shriver, an eleven year old white girl. Earl claims that his confession to the crime was obtained under duress by a sadistic police officer and that the real murderer is Blair Sullivan, a serial killer already under sentence of death for several other murders. Armstrong visits Sullivan in his cell on death row, hoping to persuade him to confess to Joanie's murder, thereby saving Earl from the electric chair. <br /><br />At first all goes well. Sullivan confesses and Earl is released from prison when the appeal court quashes his conviction. As this development takes place only a little after halfway through the film, it is at this point that alarm bells will start ringing in the mind of the viewer. "Warning! Major plot twist ahead!" And so it proves. The anticipated twist soon materialises. Earl, it transpires, is actually guilty of the crime of which he has just been acquitted, and probably of several others as well, but hatched a diabolical plan together with Sullivan in order to secure his freedom; Sullivan will confess to Joanie's murder if Earl will murder his parents. (Just why Sullivan wanted his parents dead is never precisely explained). Armstrong now finds that he is himself in danger from the man whose life he has just saved; Earl has a grudge against Armstrong's wife, herself a lawyer, who acted as Counsel for the prosecution in an earlier case when Earl was accused of rape. <br /><br />"Just Cause" is an example of the auto-cannibalism in which Hollywood sometimes likes to indulge, cobbling together one film by recycling themes and plot devices from a number of others. The first half owes an obvious debt to films like "Intruder in the Dust" and "To Kill a Mockingbird"; about the only difference is that the Sheriff who beats a confession out of Bobby Earl is himself black, whereas in earlier films he would have been white. (Police brutality is now an equal opportunities activity). The central twist in the plot was borrowed from Costa-Gavras's "Music Box", although in that film the revelation does not occur until the very end. The finale, in which a lawyer, his wife and their young daughter are in danger from a former client, is an obvious plagiarism of the two versions of "Cape Fear", which also take place in the swamplands of the American South. Ed Harris' characterisation of Sullivan as a Bible-quoting religious maniac is a direct imitation of Robert de Niro's character in the Scorsese version of "Cape Fear", made four years before "Just Cause". <br /><br />(There is a postscript. Just as "Just Cause" borrowed heavily from several other movies, seven years later its central plot twist was, in its turn, to be blatantly plagiarised in the Ashley Judd vehicle "High Crimes"). <br /><br />The trouble with this style of film-making-by-numbers is that the resulting films are generally much less distinguished than those which inspired them. The whole is normally very much less than the sum of the parts, and "Just Cause" is a much lesser film than any of those which were cannibalised to make it. Harris is normally a gifted actor but this is one of his weakest performances, largely because he is not so much playing a character as playing de Niro playing Max Cady. Blair Underwood is OK as Bobby Earl the (supposedly) innocent young man of the early scenes, but unconvincing as Bobby Earl the murderous psychopath of the later ones. Sean Connery as Armstrong and Laurence Fishburne as the black Sheriff are rather better, but neither is good enough to save the film. (Connery and Harris were to act together in another, better, film, "The Rock", the following year). <br /><br />There is another problem with "Just Cause". The first half of the film looks like a standard liberal "issue" movie, anti-death penalty, anti-racist and critical of heavy-handed policing. The second half looks more like the work of a die-hard reactionary, preaching the message that all criminals are evil bastards, that the only way to deal with them is to fry them in the chair, that liberal lawyers are the useful idiots of the criminal fraternity and that police officers who beat up suspects are to be commended as heroes. The filmmakers seem to have been blissfully unaware that the plot twist casually introduced into the middle of their film had the (presumably unwanted) effect of reversing its political stance, or if they were aware of the problem they ignored it. A suitably convoluted plot was obviously thought to be more important than political consistency. 4/10 | 0neg
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JUST CAUSE showcases Sean Connery as a Harvard law prof, Kate Capshaw (does she still get work?) as his wife (slight age difference) and Lawrence Fishburne as a racist southern cop (!) and Ed Harris in a totally over the top rendition of a fundamentalist southern serial killer.<br /><br />Weird casting, but the movie plays serious mindf** with the audience. (don't read if you ever intend to seriously watch this film or to ever watch this film seriously due to the spoilers) First of all, I felt myself rolling my eyes repeatedly at the Liberal stereotypes: the cops are all sadistic and frame this black guy with no evidence. The coroner, witnesses and even the lawyer of the accused collaborate against him (he is accused of the rape and murder of a young girl) because he is black.<br /><br />Connery is a Harvard law prof who gives impassioned speeches about the injustices against blacks and against the barbarous death penalty. He is approached by the convicted man's grandmother to defend him and re-open the trial.<br /><br />Connery is stonewalled (yawn...) by the small town officials and the good IL' boys club but finds that the case against Blair, the alleged killer, now on death row, was all fabricated. The main evidence was his confession which was beaten out of him.<br /><br />The beating was administered by a black cop (!) who even played Russian roulette to get the confession out of him. Connery finds out that another inmate on death row actually did the murder and after a few tete a tetes with a seriously overacting, Hannibal Lecter-like Ed Harris, he finds out where Harris hid the murder weapon.<br /><br />He gets a re-trial and Blair is freed.<br /><br />I think... film over....<br /><br />Then suddenly! It turns out that Blair IS a psychotic psycho and that he used "white guilt" to enlist Connery. He concocted the story with Ed Harris in return for Blair carrying out a few murders for Harris.<br /><br />now Blair is on the loose again, thanks to Connery's deluded PC principles! The final 30 min. are a weird action movie tacked onto a legal drama, Connery and Fishburne fighting the serial killer in an alligator skinning house on stilts (yes, you read that right) in the everglades.<br /><br />That was one weird film.<br /><br />So the whole system is corrupt and inefficient, the cops are all just bullies and Abu Graib type torturers, but the criminals are really psychotics and deserve to fry.<br /><br />Truly depressing on every level! The system is completely rotten and the PC white guilt types who challenge it are seriously deluded too.<br /><br />Two thumbs down. Connery obviously had to make a mortgage payment or something. | 0neg
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The form of the film is that of a suspense shocker. There are surprises, twists and turns, reverses and excitements. At times, this is truly an "edge-of-the-seat" film. But it disappoints, and disappoints severely.<br /><br />The villain of the piece is not believeable; his character does not hold together. I refuse to "spoil" the film, but will only say that the character we meet at the beginning just could not be he whom we see at the end.<br /><br />The second major disappointment of the film is that--finally, it becomes little more that a bloody slasher film. There is little qualitative difference between this and one of the "Friday the 13th" films. Not that every film need always be totally tasteful, but this film does drip gore on occasion.<br /><br />Though the film features the magnificent Sean Connery, even he does not measure up to his usual standard, and often just seems to be walking through the paces. | 0neg
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Just Cause is one of those films that at first makes you wonder quite why it was so heavily slated when it came out - nothing special but competent enough and with an excellent supporting performance from Ed Harris. Then you hit the last third and everything starts to get increasingly silly until you've got a killer with a flashlight strapped to his forehead threatening to fillet Sean Connery's wife (a typically mannered and unconvincing Kate Capshaw) and kid (a very young Scarlet Johannsen) in an alligator skinner's shack. <br /><br />The kind of movie that's probably best seen on a plane, and even then only once. | 0neg
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Look carefully at the wonderful assortment of talent put together to make this movie: Connery, Fishburne, Capshaw, Harris, Underwood, Beatty, Thigpen, even cameos by Slezak, Lange, and Plimpton. They prove, in spades, the adage that a good cast cannot save a bad script. The story line requires so many leaps of faith from the audience that its implausibility should have exceeded even Hollywood standards. It's not particularly original, and the "twists" are downright cruel. | 0neg
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As other reviewers have noted the film dies in the last 1/2 hour. However before that it suffers from predictability and a stunningly vapid performance by Kate Capshaw, who clearly never found her character and ruins every scene she's in. Connery is fine as is Fishbourne, but most scenes are manipulated for effect rather than truth which overlays the entirety with a sense of unreality. And the ending is simply bizarre. The film makers apparently knew when they pieced this mess together that all they needed were sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie to have Thanksgiving dinner, so to compensate they added an overloud "dramatic" score. Every little jump is accompanied by a crescendo of orchestration, to the point where it becomes laughable. If you want an example of major league bad film this is one to see, otherwise skip it. | 0neg
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Seems that the cast should ensure at least an average movie. And so I sat down for 102 minutes of unbelief. Beside Ed Harris no-one seems to own the skills of acting. Even Sean Connery, who I normally worship, must have had an off-day during the entire filming of Just Case. Not once in during the whole movie one actor could convince me.<br /><br />This made this movie look cheap and unreal.<br /><br />The story makes up a little. It is thrilling, and the plot is unexpected.<br /><br />Conclusion only watch this movie if you really have nothing more useful to do. | 0neg
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1st watched 2/16/2002 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Arne Glimcher): Mystery??/Thriller with too many ridiculous plot twists. Despite the very talented cast this movie is way too predictable and just downright under-estimates it's audience. The movie-going public is not stupid and I hope will not keep filling certain stars pockets again and again despite what they are involved with. We think that this movie is going to be about something with Connery's conviction against capitol punishment in the beginning but it turns out to be nothing but a standard, contrived for the audience's sake, run of the mill, let's never get it over with, thriller. We are pulled into every silly switch in character, as they are portrayed to us when it's needed in the story, and we're ready for this thing to be over way before it ends. Yes there is some good acting here, especially from Blair Underwood, Fishburne, and Ed Harris in a psycho-supporting role but the story does not work from almost the beginning to the very long-awaited end. | 0neg
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The performances of Fishbourne (who appears strangely funny somehow) and (short featured)Ed Harris are remarkable, unlike Connery's who doesn't appear to find sense in his role and ends up in the motorial behaviour of a 80yr old man. In fact the screenplay doesn't make sense; imagine a 60 min. happy ending-plot plus a sudden turn appendix without any argumental structure in respect to the characters. It's more an accident than a screenplay and may be good for examination purposes at screen-wrights' schools. The more you remind the details the stronger this impression gets. The capital punishment is not an issue here, although it is a subject from the beginning; it sort of fades away without further comment. The subject-matter and environment could have been good. | 0neg
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A pot - boiler if ever I saw one. A supposed thriller borrowing from "A Time to Kill", "Silence of the Lambs", even an inverted "In the Heat of the Night" with a little reverse murder, a la "Strangers on a Train" thrown in, it fails abysmally where all the above, to a large degree, succeeded. Namely, in delivering thrills. The plot seems condensed from a bigger book, making the plot developments obvious and uninvolving, while the direction lacks pace and verve. To rein in any kudos, a major twist had to be delivered along the way and here it fails palpably too. Connery is clearly slowing down in his old age, barely bothering with his attempt at a US accent and besides seems too old to be the husband of Hope Lange and the father of those gosh - darn kids of his. He even has a father in law who seems younger than him. Laurence Fishburne barely gets the chance to inhabit his role and you're confused from the outset as to whether he's a bad guy or a good guy. Someone once said that flashbacks shouldn't lie - they do, confusedly, here. The rest of the playing is merely average by a reasonable cast in their underwritten stereotyped roles. The supposed climax managed too, to roll by leaving me firmly entrenched in the back, not as should have been the aim, front edge of my seat. Mediocre sloppy Hollywood film making for sure. | 0neg
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This movie is a crappy and forgettable Sean Connery vehicle. The performances are generally crappy especially by Capshaw, Fishburne, and the usually solid Ed Harris. Connery seems miscast as a Harvard Academic. The movie absolutely gets worse as it goes along. It is a third rate mystery that becomes extremely contrived by the time it unravels. The movie squanders an excellent supporting cast. George Plimpton also turns up in a minor role to add some gravitas to Connery as they debate the death penalty. The violence and the atmosphere pepper a third rate mystery/thriller that is manipulation to the highest degree. The scripting and direction are extremely poor. Connery's charisma and screen presence are the film's only virtue. Manipulative, Violent, and Ridiculous. 2/10 Avoid It. | 0neg
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This is just a case of a previously worthless island changed into something worthwhile. Jesus Christ people lets throw a big fit over 2000 islanders big deal.This is just a case of a previously worthless island changed into something worthwhile. Jesus Christ people lets throw a big fit over 2000 islanders big deal.This is just a case of a previously worthless island changed into something worthwhile. Jesus Christ people lets throw a big fit over 2000 islanders big deal.This is just a case of a previously worthless island changed into something worthwhile. Jesus Christ people lets throw a big fit over 2000 islanders big deal. | 0neg
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Because IT IS, that's why! This is the same jealous-daughter-kills-people flick we've seen a billion times. Rosanna Arquette makes anything worth watching, and Mandy Schaffer's brief nude scene (after teasing via scantily clad attire throughout the film) at the end almost make this trite blarney worthwhile, but not quite.<br /><br />* out of **** | 0neg
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This can't be Mandy Schaffer's last film. Somebody, do something! :-(<br /><br />Argh.<br /><br />What little life this one might have had, the directing finished off. Don't blame the cast; they did OK. Even the winemaker's younger brother was pretty well done, and he didn't even get into the movie until halfway through. And please, please put Mandy in some more movies! She's too beautiful to bury her career at such a young age. Ya' breakin' my haht, heah....<br /><br />Two specific criticisms, in case anyone cares (apparently nobody liked this movie very much). First, the way Traci kept popping up at just the right melodramatic moment, in order to see whatever she was supposed to see, and never got seen in return, was very annoying. Hollywood: please stop giving villains perfect timing luck which runs out exactly when the climax arrives. It's dumb. Write better scripts so you won't have to use that lame plot device any more. If your script isn't good enough to stand up without that, then don't produce it.<br /><br />Second, Carmen wouldn't have fallen for that fake injury trick that Traci pulled. She already had Traci fingered. More bad writing/directing there.<br /><br />I could trash this movie further but mercy forbids it. Actually I didn't hate it as much as the others seem to have. It just didn't have much of a reason for being made, unless it was purely a vehicle to show off the lovely Mandy. Oh, and to whoever didn't think she was sexy... the character wasn't very well written, but how can you say she wasn't sexy?!? One or the other of us needs glasses, and I don't think it's me.<br /><br />MORE MANDY. (Not to be confused with "Moore, Mandy" -- although I'd like to see her again too. ;-)<br /><br />P.S. Did I mention I hope Mandy makes me more movies? <:-D | 0neg
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Let me be really clear about this movie. I didn't watch this movie because of the plot, I watch it for the saucy sex scenes. That being said, this movie is so god damn awful I flip between pure joy of seeing a godly body of Traci (Mandy Schaffer) and cringing my eyeballs out for the disaster of a plot.<br /><br />Spoiler Alert The first scene of the movie already had me cringing.. you see a woman painting something by the lakeside, in pure bliss and serene, then a beautiful girl approach and ask if she could paint beside her. When they both finished, they show each other what they had done... and the woman painted A VINEYARD WHEN SHE IS FACING INFRONT OF THE LAKE. What kind of screwball director would make this kind of mistake?? And in another scene, Traci gets to kill her teacher's lover by smash him with the sail pole, and then she swims away, and none of the town's police suspected her once. I mean HELLOOOOO? MANDY DID NOT WEAR A GLOVE DID SHE? HER FINGER PRINTS ARE ALL OVER THE GOD DAMN BOAT!! After that, it gets worst, whenever Mandy is around, there is the "chilling" sound effect played which sounds like a cat in hissy fit. It's also a real pity Rosanna Arquette's is in this movie. I feel real sorry for her to have to star in this super low budget soft-porn no brainer. Same goes for Jürgen Prochnow, who also has the misfortune to star in this movie. All in all, 2/10. | 0neg
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A truly, truly dire Canadian-German co-production, the ever-wonderful Rosanna Arquette plays an actress whose teenage daughter redefines the term "problem child" - a few uears prior to the "action" the child murdered her father, and mum took the fall for the offspring. Now she's moved up to the Northwest US to start over, but her child still has a problem in that she's devoted to her mother. So devoted in fact that she kills anyone who might be seen as a threat to their bond.<br /><br />Unfortunately Mandy Schaeffer (as the daughter) murders more than people - she delivers such a terrible performance that she also wipes out the movie, though the incoherent script, useless direction and appalling music (check out the saxophone the first time she displays her bikini-clad bod) don't help any; we're supposed to find her sexy and scary, but she fails on both counts. Almost completely unalluring and not even bad enough to be amusing (not to mention the fact that Arquette and Schaeffer don't really convince as mother and daughter), all condolences to Miss Arquette and Jurgen Prochnow, both of whom are worthy of far more than this, and both of whom (particularly Rosanna) are the only sane reasons for anyone to sit through this farrago.<br /><br />One of the production companies is called Quality International Films - not since the three-hour "Love, Lies And Murder" (from Two Short Productions) has there been such a "You must be joking" credit. | 0neg
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This movie is so bad, I knew how it ends right after this little girl killed the first person. Very bad acting very bad plot very bad movie<br /><br />do yourself a favour and DON'T watch it 1/10 | 0neg
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Oh man. If you want to give your internal Crow T. Robot a real workout, this is the movie to pop into the ol' VCR. The potential for cut-up lines in this film is just endless.<br /><br />(Minor spoilers ahead. Hey, do you really care if a film of this quality is "spoiled?") Traci is a girl with a problem. Psychology has developed names for it when a child develops a sexual crush on the opposite-sex parent. But this girl seems to have one for her same-sex one, and I don't think there's a term for that. It might be because her mother Dana is played by Rosanna Arquette, whose cute overbite, neo-flowerchild sexuality and luscious figure makes me forgive her any number of bad movies or unsympathetic characters. Here Dana is not only clueless to her daughter's conduct; she seems to be competing for the gold medal in the Olympic Indulgent Mother competition. <br /><br />It's possible that Dana misses Traci's murderous streak because truth be told, Traci seems to have the criminal skills of a hamster. It's only because the script dictates so that she manages to pull off any kind of a body count.<br /><br />A particularly hilarious note in this movie is the character of Carmen, a Mexican maid who is described by Dana as around so long she's like one of the family although she dresses in what the director thought would say, "I just fell off the tomato truck from Guadalajara." Carmen is so wise to Traci's scheming, she might also wear a sign saying, "Hey, I'm the Next Victim!" Sure enough, Traci confronts Carmen as Carmen is making her way back from Mass, and bops her with one of those slightly angled lug wrenches that car manufacturers put next to your spare as a bad joke. I rather suspect than in real life those things are as useless as a murder weapon as they are for changing a tire. <br /><br />In another sequence, Arquette wears a flimsy dress to a vineyard, under cloudy skies, talking to the owner. Cut to her in another flimsy dress under sunny skies, talking to the owner's brother. Then cut to her wearing the first dress, in the first location, under cloudy skies - but it's supposed to be later. You get the picture. We're talking really bad directing.<br /><br />As for skin, don't expect much, although Traci does own a nice couple of bikinis. <br /><br />For those looking for a trash wallow, 8. For anybody else, 1/2. | 0neg
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I am guessing the reason this movie did so well at the box office is of course Eddie Murphy. I think this was his first movie since "Beverly Hills Cop" so at the time he was hot. Considering that one made over two hundred million and it was R and this one made about 80 million and it was pg does say it was not all that popular. I have never been a big Eddie Murphy fan, so that is probably another reason I didn't care for it much at all. This one has Eddie as some sort of finder of lost kids. He must find the golden child or the world is in terrible peril. The plot is very bad, but as bad as it is it does not compare to the special effects. I had seen better stuff done in the 70's than some of the stuff this one offers, Ray Harryhausen did better stuff. Still the main reason you see a movie like this is because of Eddie, unfortunately he is not very funny in this one at all and it just seems stupid to put him in the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" type scenes. I guess they were hoping for a fish out of water effect, but to me it just did not work. | 0neg
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