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Plot = Melissa is a new girl in town, she's fifteen years old and her birthday is coming up in one week. Since Melissa is beautiful, every boy in town wants to hook up with her, but the few that manage to catch her interest mysteriously die.<br /><br />To be honest the real reason I wanted to watch this film is because Dana Kimmel of Friday The 13th pt 3 was in it which isn't a proper reason why to rush out and see a movie. When I started watching it I realized that "Sweet Sixteen" isn't a very good slasher, it's really dull and boring and just doesn't go anywhere. After over an hour, only three murders have occurred and the story hasn't really developed in any possible way.<br /><br />The movie is nicely shot with quite nice photography and good directing but just as with many other slasher flicks from the 80s, the movie suffers from being too dark at times. The acting is actually pretty good though and Melissa's character is easy to sympathize with, even though she's a complete slut.<br /><br />The story line isn't completely rubbish but it's just way too dull to keep you interested, the only things that kept me interested was Melissa she was stunning and Dana Kimmel whose really sweet and cute in this movie.<br /><br />All in all pretty dull slasher flick that doesn't go anywhere I'd definitely wouldn't recommend it to Slasher fans.
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Negative
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Upon viewing Tobe Hooper's gem, Crocodile, in 2000, I developed a great interest in the college/crocodile niche of the exploitation/monster genre. I look forward to a wayward producer to follow up with several sequels to these delightful bonbons of camp goodness. If only Ed Wood could bring his subtle sense of flair and dignity to these remarkable scripts. With Ed writing the scripts, and a room full of monkees creating crocodile special effects on a computer, all we'd need would be a cast of crocky fodder with Russ Meyer breasts and Ren Hoek pectoral implants.<br /><br />While Tobe Hooper's crocky opus referenced his own movies, Blood Surf chose to dish out a bunch of aging themes from the chum bucket of other movies. See if you can look past the Revenge of the Nerds sequel sets to find the allusions/homages?/rip-offs to Jaws, Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones' Last Crusade, The Convent, Godzilla 2000, and any James Bond movie. Also, try to find the ready-for-tv fade where the editor gave up on making sense of the stock.<br /><br />I was disappointed the crock didn't get to try out its sotto voce tenor with a soliloquy on environmentalism...or crocky appreciation, but the quasi-Captain Ahab of the story does get his tour de force speach. Perhaps, in the coming years, we'll see a crock galloping off after a shootout into a golden sunset. Or hopefully, a monkey will flush a crocky down the toilet of an international space station for midgets and enjoy the exploitative waltz of zero-G monkey/midget/crocodile bloodshed.<br /><br />All-in-all, the lack of a whammy bar in the surf music irked me.
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Negative
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I give this movie a ONE, for it is truly an awful movie. Sound track of the DVD is so bad, it actually hurts my ear. But the vision, no matter how disjointed, does show something really fancy in the Italian society. I will not go into detail what actually was so shocking , but the various incidents are absolutely abnormal. So for the kink value, i give it one.Otherwise, the video, photography, acting of the adults actors /actresses are simply substandard, a practical jock to people who love foreign movies.Roberto, the main character, has full spectrum of emotions but exaggerated to the point of being unbelievable.however, the children in the movie are mostly 3/4 years old, and they are genuine and the movie provides glimpse of the Italian life..
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Negative
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This is possibly the worst fencing, sword-fighting, movie ever made. That is not just because the so called sports fencing is poor but because the plot, characters are so weak that they've got to throw in a semi nude sex scene and, later, supposed group dancing around a fencing scene in the fencing club trying, I suppose to maintain audience interest. What a waste of F. Murray Abraham's talents. You're better served with overblown swashbuckling movies like Zorro, Scaramouche, anything that has Basil Rathbone as the villain. As a fencer myself I recognize the near impossibility of capturing fencing as a sport on film, but if it ever happens it's got to have fresher, better drawn characters and a plot with more depth.
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Negative
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This is possibly a cool fencing, sword-fighting, movie ever made. That is not just because the sports fencing feels real but because the plot, characters are so stronger that even when they've thrown in a semi nude sex scene or, later, supposed group dancing around a fencing scene in the fencing club trying, they've managed to maintain audience interest. What a good use of F. Murray Abraham's talents. You may think you're better served with overblown swashbuckling movies like Zorro, Scaramouche, anything that has Basil Rathbone as the villain but this is good. As a fencer myself I recognize the near impossibility of capturing fencing as a sport on film, and if it ever happens it can't possibly have fresher, better drawn characters and a plot with more depth than this
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Positive
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Boy, this was one lousy movie! While I haven't seen all of the Burton/Taylor collaborations, I can say with confidence that this is the worst. This rich but ill woman (Taylor, of course) owns this beautiful island in the Meditteranean, ruling over a put-upon staff when she's suddenly visited by this traveling poet, who mouths platitudes. In fact, the whole film is just a talk fest, with much of the talk making no sense. Even in 1968, no one could make heads or tails of this pretentious nonsense, and the passage of time makes that even more clear. If it weren't for the beautiful cinematography and scenery, it would deserve a negative rating. The only thing this film is good for is its unintentional laughs at the expense of the stars.
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Negative
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This is just a butchering of a wonderful story by Edwin Torres. This movie doesn't follow the storyline in the book. And, there are so many inconsistencies with the original movie that you have to wonder if the screenwriter had even seen the first movie.<br /><br />Al Pacino (the original and still the best Carlito) gets out of prison at the start of the original one. Here, Carlito retires with his woman in paradise. <br /><br />What happened to Gail from Lorain, Ohio? In this installment, she isn't mentioned, and Carlito retires with and presumably will marry some other girl.<br /><br />Also, where is Kleinfeld? I think he was in the first book.<br /><br />I also like how Mr. Guzman plays a totally different character in this film. He was Pachanga back in the Pacino days. Now, he is Nacho Reyes, a killer from Cuba. I remember that Nacho Reyes had a much bigger role in the book. <br /><br />It's been a while since I read the book, but where did Sean Comb's character come from? Also, I think this movie really glosses over the racial tensions in Harlem that Torres was writing about. And, the mob doesn't get the treatment that they did in the book. They are also wiped out in this movie. But, magically the Pleasant Avenue bunch is around for the second movie.<br /><br />The book told a great story. This movie could have told a great story. This is just a huge disappointment. Read the book. It's a better use of your time.
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Negative
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It's hard to believe that in 1997 David Duchovny was at the top of his fame, with X-Files, one of the best sci-fi series ever, being at the top of the glory. Nine years later he is almost forgotten, and his tentatives to make it on the big screen failed miserably. I cannot even explain why, he is a fair actor, but probably his moment of fame cast him in a eternal role that takes big talent to break from.<br /><br />At the same time Angelina Jolie was much less known, and she was really lucky that a film like 'Playing God' did not led her career into a dead-end. Fortunately for her, 'The Bone Collector' and 'Girl, Interrupted' were waiting beyond the corner, and when Lara Croft came, her career was launched.<br /><br />There is not too much to be told about this film. It's the only big screen film of Andy Wilson, and there must be a reason. All is banal and most of what happens on the screen expected in this story of an ex-doctor who saves the life of a shooting victim in a bar only to find himself working for the mob. The off-screen voice is especially bad, with a moralistic text that kills any shade of cinematographic experience from the film. You probably will not meet the film but in DVD rental stores, or on TV. Try to look for something better.
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Negative
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The threesome of Bill Boyd, Robert Armstrong, and James Gleason play Coney Island carnys vying for the hand of Ginger Rogers, a working gal who sells salt water taffy. With the outbreak of World War I, the threesome enlist and pursue Ginger from afar. The first half of this RKO Pathe production is hard going, with the three male leads chewing up the scenery with overcooked one-liners and 'snappy' dialogue that quickly grows tiresome. The second half concentrates on action sequences as the US Navy pursues both a German merchant cruiser and a U-boat. These sequences are lively and well-filmed, but overall this is an overlong and unsatisfying comedy-drama with a flat ending. For fans of the stars only.
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Negative
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After just watching FIVE ACROSS THE EYES, I gotta be honest...I just didn't like it. I had read so many good reviews on this movie, but I just did'nt get where these reviews have came from,<br /><br />I have got a lot of time for newcomers into film-making, and I'm sure the directors will do well for themselves, but the budget they had was the main problem, there was two cameras used in the entire film (which was OK) but they seemed like really cheap cameras. Another problem was the sound, you get all these girls screaming and shouting all at the same time, all talking on top of each other - it's just impossible to hear what they're saying.<br /><br />It had a good idea going for it, in a nutshell, they hit a parked car then drive off, a short while later they are getting chased by the car they hit, driven by a mad woman, who wants to kill them, and has plenty of chances to do so!...and on the other hand the girls have plenty of chances to escape, but don't! <br /><br />Very frustrating...I only just scraped through this one!
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Negative
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I waited for this movie to play in great anticipation. Assuming it would be more accurately portrayed like the movie, "The Christmas Box" based on the book by Richard Paul Evans. I sent out many emails to friends and family asking them to please watch this show, hoping they would better understand a tiny amount of my "new" life. After seeing this movie I was so disappointed. As a mother who lost her only child in November 2003 and REALLY knowing the pain, I had hoped that this movie would shed light to parents who "think" they understand the grief a parent goes through who has lost a child. This movie was a very light hearted movie and the silliness of Diane Keaton was a slap in the face to parents who have buried a child. It was VERY unrealistic from start to stop. I had a few calls after the movie, each call the same, "That was so off the mark and made it appear that in a short time you are back on the road and listening to songs on the radio and life is back" What a bunch of bull! It is clear that the director and Keaton have never lost a child because neither would have EVER made the movie to be so off the mark. I guess that's Hollywood.
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Negative
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SWING! is an important film because it's one of the remaining Black-produced and acted films from the 1930s. Many of these films have simply deteriorated so badly that they are unwatchable, but this one is in fairly good shape. It's also a nice chance to see many of the talented Black performers of the period just after the heyday of the old Cotton Club--a time all but forgotten today.<br /><br />Unfortunately, while the film is historically important and has some lovely performances, it's also a mess. The main plot is very similar to the Hollywood musicals of the era--including a prima donna who is going to ruin the show and the surprise unknown who appears from no where to save the day. However, the writing is just god-awful and a bit trashy at times--and projects images of Black America that some might find a bit demeaning. This is because before the plot really gets going, you are treated to a no-account bum who lives off his hard working wife (a popular stereotype of the time) and when he is caught with a hussy (who, by the way, totally overplays this role), they have a fight which looks like a scene from WWE Smackdown! And, the one lady wants to cut the other lady with a straight razor--a trashy scene indeed! Later in the film, when the prima donna is behaving abominably, her husband punches her in the face and everyone applauds him! It seems like the film, at times, wants to appeal to the lowest common denominator in the audience PLUS they can't even do this well--with some of the worst acting I've seen in a very long time.<br /><br />Still, if you can look past a lousy production in just about every way (with trashy characters, bad acting and direction and poor writing), this one might be worth a peek so you can see excellent singing and tap dancing--as well as to catch a glimpse of forgotten Black culture. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the acting--it's really, really bad!
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Negative
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Sean, you know I think that you are absolutely the greatest actor in the world, but I can't commend you for this. Comedy just isn't your strong suit.<br /><br />However, it wasn't all your fault. Some of the stuff was just too hard to understand. Alfred Lynch did a decent job, but you gotta wonder where the lines came from from the beginning.<br /><br />Once again, Sean... I apologize.
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Negative
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Sean, you know I think that you are absolutely the greatest actor in the world, and you are right. Comedy is your strong suit.<br /><br />It wasn't just him though. Some of the plot was just too funny. Alfred Lynch did a good job,and you gotta wonder where the lines came from from the beginning.<br /><br />Once again, Sean... I love you.
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Positive
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Lee hosted the 100 Years of Horror for Ted Newsom and was talking about filmic werewolves. He said something to the effect that his only brush with lycanthropy was The Howling II, then he quipped, "The less said about that the better." Indeed he was right as this film may very well be the worst in his entire catalog of screen performances. The first Howling by Joe Dante was a groundbreaking werewolf film with its incredible special effects and its campy sense of style and subject matter. It was a film to be taken seriously. Like other good original films, filmmakers for some strange reason thought that even more campy sequels were needed rather than what worked the first time(See CHUD then CHUD II to illustrate this point). This film is miles and miles away from the first on every front. There is absolutely nothing scary about it. It looks cheap and is pitch black through most of the major scenes. Lee is the only actor in the film worth mentioning(okay, I'll cede Ferdy Mayne too). Lee looks embarrassed as he says inane dialog and does ridiculous things(check out that ending with him and Stirba). Lee looks incredibly tired and knows what dreck this is which is a tad more insightful than the two leads who leave America to go to Romania. The story isn't really worth examining here, and you can bet there is very little story worth mentioning when you have to have Stephen Parsons and his band Babel play through much of the film in the beginning and the ending with that dreadful noise. Sybil Danning is here and, yes, she disrobes once and then we get that scene showed again and again and again - one reviewer said 17 times(I counted ten - but might have been so bored out of my mind by that point). I gave the film three stars, but it really deserves a zero - the three I gave it are 1 for Lee and two for Ms. Danning's contributions. Yuck!
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Negative
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Surviving Christmas (2004) Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate, Catherine O' Hara, Josh Zuckerman, Bill Macy, Jennifer Morrison, Udo Kier, D: Mike Mitchell. Dumped by his girlfriend, a hotshot yuppie doesn't want to be left alone on Christmas so he decides to return to his boyhood home, imposing on the dysfunctional family that now lives there and bribes them to pose as his family. An obnoxious and one-dimensional performance by Affleck, who mainly acts with a flashy smile, makes his character come off as a mentally unbalanced creep, but Gandolfini and O' Hara breathe some life into this mess. Even for farce, its silliness is lumbering, not much makes sense from scene to scene, and its sentimental messages are as phony as Affleck's grin. 91 min., rated PG-13. * ½
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Negative
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"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" is yet another 'feel-goody', so-called 'heart warming', and out-for-ratings show that ABC has had the time to put together.<br /><br />I understand the troubles that these families go through. For that, I am sorry. But wouldn't you think that putting four wide-screen plasma televisions, three flat-screen desktop computers, an inground pool taking up half of a backyard, and closets full of expensive designer clothing is a BIT too excessive for ANY family? Sure, these families have been through a lot. Sure, they deserve nicer things that what they had previously had.<br /><br />But honestly, the things that Ty Pennington and his crew put into these houses are enough to suit an entire neighborhood.<br /><br />Another thing that really irks me about this show is how Ty and his crew always have something good to say about every little thing that relates to the family, or the family's condition. Telling a wheelchair-bound person that he or she is 'so strong', or 'very brave' really does get old after a while. That may sound rude, but believe me; watch this show, and you'll see what I mean.<br /><br />All in all, this show is overrated. If you want to watch it, go ahead. This comment is just a heads-up for what you'd be watching.
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Negative
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Yes, he is! ...No, not because of Pintilie likes to undress his actors and show publicly their privies. Pintilie IS THE naked "emperor" - so to speak...<br /><br />It's big time for someone to state the truth. This impostor is a voyeur, a brat locked in an old man's body. His abundance of nude scenes have no artistic legitimacy whatsoever. It is 100% visual perversion: he gets his kicks by making the actors strip in the buff and look at their willies. And if he does this in front of the audience, he might eve get a hard-on! Did you know that, on the set of "Niki Ardelean", he used to embarrass poor Coca Bloss, by telling her: "Oh, Coca, how I wanna f*** you!"? She is a great lady, very decent and sensitive, and she became unspeakably ashamed - to his petty satisfaction! And, as a worrying alarm signal about the degree of vulgarity and lack of education in Romanian audiences, so many people are still so foolish to declare these visual obscenities "works of art"! Will anyone have ever the decency to expose the truth of it all?
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Negative
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Well this is a typical "straight to the toilet" slasher film.<br /><br />Long story short, a bunch of teenagers/young adults becoming stranded in the middle of creepy woods and get hacked down by naked nymphomaniac demons.<br /><br />This movie has all the basics for this slasher fromage:<br /><br />-Naked women, -teens or young adults being marooned in someplace spooky, -gory death scenes, -the last survivor being a well built young woman who will always show off her midriff, but never bra less, -a creepy, crazy man who knows about the evil, -lesbian kiss scene, -sex being a killer, -no plot<br /><br />Even then for a cheesy slasher film, it was really terrible. The atmosphere is totally dead. Nothing, not even the sexually explicit scenes and nudity, was enough to keep the male and lesbian female audience interested. Watching it felt like it was being watched with a nasty head congestion or a nasty head cold.<br /><br />Give the demonic ..... 0/10.
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Negative
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Sarah Silverman is really the "flavor of the month" comic right now. Is she really worth all the hype? Yes and no. She is funny at times, sometimes hilariously so (her standup routine is actually quite interesting, though not always funny). Other times, you're feeling cheated by the media for overhyping yet another performer. She is one of those really cute comedians that men especially flock to, saying that they dig her intelligence and wit. But if you corner them, most men will admit that they just want to sleep with her, and that's why they watch her. She reminds me of why many men flocked to Margaret Cho and Janeane Garofalo, even though neither of them are really "hot" now in terms of popularity. Sarah doesn't drink or smoke (at least cigs), so she should be hot when she's 60, so her fans (especially the male ones) can rejoice.<br /><br />As for this show, it's very much like her comedy. When it works, it's hilarious. When it doesn't, it's full blown tedium and very, very boring. The AIDS episode here is the best one. It's consistently funny, and has some really good satire in it. Brian Poeshn's character has an unhealthy obsession with Tab in one episode, and it's hilarious seeing him in a Tab T-shirt. But they never really go anywhere with it, and it eventually wears out its welcome. Sarah's character in the series is rather annoying, the gay couple (Brian Poeshn and some other guy) seems tacked on and never really does anything for the show as a whole, and the supporting players (including Sarah's real life sister, Laura, who doesn't look a thing like her) are OK. When the jokes hit, they're brilliant. When they don't, they're awful, and I mean really awful. There's also an obsession with coprophilia here (aka poop jokes), which seems to have replaced actual wit and intelligence in comedy today. So should you watch this show? If you have a crush on Sarah, go for it. You can gaze at her and pretend she's yours. As for her show, it's ranges from good to absolute zero.
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Negative
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I went in expecting the movie to be completely dumb. With such a low expectation, any form of entertainment would be a pleasant surprise. The soundtrack was the best part of the movie, but poking fun at the nonsense that goes on in singles wards was also amusing.<br /><br />This said, there were many things about The Singles Ward that were completely annoying. The entire film was poorly dubbed and made watching mouths while listening to their voices very irritating. This lack of professionalism was surpassed only by the cameos of Mormon celebrities who have no business acting.<br /><br />This film will do well among Mormondom, especially in college communities where singles ward exist. However the conclusion will offer no hope for the poor losers who find themselves unmarried. (Only the pretty girls in the Singles Ward get married, the fat, ugly ones don't, but all the ugly men do) Ultimately we realize that the whole film was an advertisement for LDSSingles.com
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Negative
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Redundant, but again the case. If you enjoy the former SNL comedian and his antics (in this case, Schneider), then you should go. Basic comedy
.man's life is saved by having various animal organs transplanted into him. Unfortunately, he takes on each animal's characteristics. Former Survivor Colleen looks pretty good here, now that she doesn't have open sores on her legs, and a little makeup on her face! D
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Negative
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This movie was like a bad indie with A-list talent. The plot was silly, all the way to the end. It reminded me very much of something churned out for the home video market in the 1980's. I would have given it a one, but there were brief moments when you could see the actors really really straining to make this worthwhile. I think the worst thing was the underwater scene's held off of the dock. The underwater lighting seemed to come from no were, and whenever someone we were supposed to care about was close to running out of air, this air tank would kind of appear. I would avoid this, unless there is nothing else on the shelf. Good Day.
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Negative
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There isn't much to say about this film, it is horrible.<br /><br />The acting and dialog are way far away from even decent, the story of the hybrid werewolf's is not very well explained and the whole thing has plot holes here and there.<br /><br />CGI is something you wouldn't like to see. It so amateurish that it makes me vomit.<br /><br />The only good thing on the DVD was in the Extras. The gag reel. Everything else, just waste of time and money. I hope noone will buy this, this is not even worth renting.<br /><br />Just stay away of this.
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Negative
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This is one strange hacked together film, you get the feeling that the bond company had to come in on this one, I'm not surprised there's no credits on it, who would want to be associated with this film. The Acting of all involved is terribly stilted and the plot jumps around all over, it all makes very little sense. As I said before it looks like the bond company had to come in because it seems like there was alot of footage that wasn't shot that needed to be, and all the music was very ill-fitting library music (cheap I guess). Very, very odd. I might actually buy a DVD of it though, if it could let me in on what the hell was going on, and what happened to this movie.
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Negative
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Oh my goodness. This was a real big mess that just couldn't help itself. Jeffrey (Jon Heder) is a 29 year old man still living with his mum (Diane Keaton) and not planning on going anywhere. Until his mother meets a rich businessman named Mert (Jeff Daniels) who she may be getting married to.<br /><br />It would have been an OK movie if Heder didn't play his Jeffrey so annoying, from the very start there is no chance of liking him and it only gets worse and worse. In the end, we are supposed to like him, but there was no reason to as he hadn't changed from the selfish brute that he was at the beginning of the movie.<br /><br />Keaton doesn't look to even be trying and is in horrible form after 2007's Because I Said So. Not to mention the shocking chemistry between Heder and Keaton, and where supposed to believe that their mother and son? The only saving grace is Jeff Daniels and Anna Faris although they don't look very interested either. Apart from a few little smiles, this film really doesn't deserve to be called a comedy simply because there is barely anything to laugh at! If your in the mood for a recent Diane Keaton flick watch Mad Money or Smother which are a lot better than this abysmal effort.
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Negative
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The best thing you can say about this movie is that if you are a fan of Sonny Chiba, this movie gives you lots of him. Chiba makes speeches; Chiba poses; Chiba sneers; Chiba glares at the camera; Chiba punches and kicks the living sushi out of a whole bunch of bad guys; Chiba sits around on couches and chairs and looks thoughtful/pensive; Chiba drives his car...<br /><br />I enjoy Chiba as an actor and a martial artist...but even for a Chiba fan, this movie may have a little too much Sonny Chiba. It's obviously something of a vanity vehicle for him. And no, I wouldn't put "Street Fighter" in the same category, because in "SF" he plays a ruthless, amoral anti-hero and he shares the camera with an intriguing cast of friends and foes. Here, he's front and center almost all the time, and he tries to be Batman, Captain America and Bruce Lee rolled into one. Toshiro Mifune and Chow Yun Fat couldn't pull this off for the length of an entire feature film, and Sonny just kind of wears out his welcome. At least he could have changed out of his suit once in a while.<br /><br />The movie is further messed up by an entirely gratuitous and badly done introductory sequence (apparently tacked on to the front of the film for the American version) and a goofy cheer "("Viva!! Chiba!! Viva!! Chiba!!) that starts things on the wrong foot. There is some astoundingly amateurish and inappropriate dubbing - Sonny (or his usual English stand-in) apparently couldn't be bothered to do the vocals for the American version, so they got some poor dope with an entirely different and smoother voice and dialect that is quite jarring coming from the face we all know and love from "Street Fighter". <br /><br />Even with all those flaws and the overexposure, this could still be a minor classic, but the camera work and the fight scenes are hopelessly cheesy. I'm willing to believe that Karate actually works if someone as amazing as Chiba's character is supposed to be does it, but the director and cameraman hedged their bets by chopping and editing fight scenes with a weed whacker so you can't really see what's going on most of the time. It's not all bad: there are some decent shots and compositions, and there's at least one memorable and nightmarish moment when the bad guys appear in the client's bedroom in a genuinely inventive way. <br /><br />And as for the actual plot...forget it. For a "bodyguard", Chiba's character is something of an idiot. The screenplay depends on his making mistakes and oversights that repeatedly place him (and his "client") in perilous situations so he can fight his way out of them, and after 30 minutes, it strains even the most credulous judgment to think that this guy is supposed to be any good. (Also, If his character was really out to destroy the Japanese drug trade, he'd have taken his client by her neck 10 minutes into the screenplay and shaken her until her teeth chattered like a castanet until she spilled her little secrets...and a whole lot of pointless death and conflict would have been avoided.) <br /><br />Still, as a whole this movie is a long way from the bottom of the barrel. It's still Sonny Chiba, and he's still fun to watch. I paid a buck to get this off the bargain DVD rack at a local mega mart, and I feel it was worth watching once.
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Negative
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First let me say that I am not a Dukes fan, but after this movie the series looked like Law and Order. The worst thing was the casting of Roscoe and Boss Hogg. Burt Reynolds is not Boss Hogg, and even worse was M.C. Gainey as Roscoe, If they ever watched the show Roscoe was not a hard ass cop. He was more a Barney Fife than the role he played in this movie.<br /><br />The movie is loaded with the usual errors, cars getting torn up, and continues like nothing happened. The worst example of this is when the the General gets together with Billy Prickett, and the General is ran into a dirt hill obviously slowing to a near stop, but goes on to win the race.
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Negative
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The plot sounds vaguely interesting ... a scientist (Bateman) discovers how to transplant animal eyes and optic nerves into other animals, like humans. A young man (Monteith) is blinded saving a coworker at work - the scientist gets a call from a doctor that the young man is a good candidate to be the first human recipient. The recipient starts becoming more and wolf-like, but the effect is nothing more than "weird eyes" and running at night with dogs! (for the whole movie) The budget is too low, the dialogue too stilted (I laughed out loud at some of the ridiculous talk), and the acting too inept. Long portions of the movie are nothing more than dreamy looks, eerie music and interspersed clips of wolves in the wild. Way too long even at 90 minutes, boring, and devoid of ideas.<br /><br />The military want to use the eye transplants to give wounded soldiers back their eyesight, and presumably want to militarize the technology. There's a silly subplot about a beautiful Indian girl (Korey) who thinks she can help, using Indian wisdom about the wolves. They make love while music heavy on drums and Indian chanting is heard - crazy, man! The love making takes place immediately after a gruesome murder - who edited this turkey?! A grouchy "medicine man" who spouts platitudes seems to do little, except for adding atmosphere.<br /><br />Here's two ridiculous scenes. A worker at the research lab goes into the animal room to discover the monkeys have been let out of their cages. She gets scared, looks left at the monkeys, turns right, turns left, turns right, turns left .. this goes on for a while (who edited this??). RUN OUT OF THE DAMN LAB! It was so stupid I started laughing. Another ridiculous scene - our hero is at home, escapes out a window as the heavily armed military arrive - he leaves the window open, the military guys go to the open window, look out the window, they say "looks like he was here", and LEAVE! He went out the open window, guys!! Crazy.<br /><br />Near the end of the movie, military guys are firing machine guns over and over at trees, when obviously nothing is there - easier to place the squibs I guess. They have 6 machine guns which have cut down trees, but decide to fight our hero with 1 knife!!! Shoot the guy!! Who wrote this trash?? There's a pointless confrontation at the end, and believe me I'm not spoiling anything for you - there's not enough plot to spoil.<br /><br />I figure the whole thing was a tax write-off or a rush job to make use of unused budget money left over from some better movie.
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Negative
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Having seen the first ten episodes, I must say this show sucks. <br /><br />What bothers me the most, is that the show was shot in Canada. I know it's cheaper, but they should have shot it in California, so we could have had scenes in the desert. That would have been more true to the movie. The first scene where they are outside in another world is in the mountains, with lots of pinetrees where it looks cold. That does'nt feel very Egyptian. What worked so well in the movie was that it felt like you were in the ancient Egypt. Here it feels like they're running around fighting aliens in a Canadian forrest. And it's so lame that appaerantly, on other planets, the fall comes as well. You can see leaves on the ground in the forrests that all look like forrests outside Vancouver. It just makes the show even more unbelievable and dumb. <br /><br />And then there is Richard Dean Anderson. He is no Kurt Russel. Sure he does a decent job and he tries to copy Russels performance a little bit, but he is just not as cool as Russel. And not nearly as good an actor as Russel. And Russells way of playing O Neill, well he was much more cynical. Andersons O Neil, is way too soft. I liked it that Russels version just did'nt give a s*** and had no trouble detonating the bomb until the very end of the movie. <br /><br />Michael Shanks does a really good job as Jackson though taking over from James Spader.<br /><br />Teal'c is a really annoying character. He is Jaffa. Not a Jaffa. Just Jaffa. Aaaarrgh!! A former bodyguard of a pathetic Ra character, seen only in the pilot and in one other episode so far. Teal'c speaks talks and acts like a robot. I've seen better acting from Jean Claude Van Damme.<br /><br />And the fact that Teal'c and the Ra character and the people they saved in the movie, can speak English all of a sudden is also incredibly dumb. What made the aliens so scary in the movie was that they spoke an ancient language and were real monsters. <br /><br />As for the special effects, they are really good in the pilot. But the very rare effects in the actual show are badly done and looks cheap. Especially a planet they visit with crystals. It's so obvious they walk around on a soundstage with a badly made painting in the background. It's an insult to us viewers that they made it look so cheap. Especially when they could have made it in front of a bluescreen with cgi backgrounds. <br /><br />The X-files had better effects when they aired their first episodes in 1993. That was 4 years before SG-1 started. And they did'nt have the apparent two million dollar budget per episode, that SG-1 supposedly had. They must have spend all the money on catering. Because I don't see it on the screen. <br /><br />Incredibly boring and pointless show, that could have been great if they had shot the show in Hollywood with a bigger budget and better writers and better characters.
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Negative
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you can be fooled by your first impressions. as in, initial reactions to a movie, for example. as in, the first time i saw this movie i was bedazzled by the idea of it (first of all, i love black comedies). could even - despite being male, myself - empathise with the feisty girls' fervor to see their husbands deceased without delay. was tripped up by my own face-value (and, i do mean "face-value") response to nicolette sheridan and a couple of the other delicious dames in the picture. it just goes to show you that you've gotta step back from a situation sometimes and see that it's bad (and not "bad good," either): the reason i'm giving this movie a "4" rating is because of ms sheridan and her gams (the rest of 'er is pretty good, too); but this movie has all the hallmark TV movie characteristics - which means you'll be disappointed if your a lover of movies made for the big screen. the story contains plot holes you could run a tunnel through - and i'll generally overlook holes in a plot if the overall thing does it for me; and i just experienced an incredible letdown the second time i saw it. i don't think it's a total waste of time, but....
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Negative
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The show's echoed 'bubbling' sound effect used to put me to sleep. A very soothing show. I think I might have slept through the parts where there was danger or peril. I had also heard that some set up shots for a show on sponge divers was shot in Tarpon Springs, Florida. I would assume Lloyd Bridges never dove there. I only remember the show in reruns and although it was never edge-of-the-seat exciting we would make up our own underwater episodes in the lake at my grandmother's house... imagining the echoed bubbling sounds and narrating our adventures in our heads. I thought 'Flipper' had better undersea action. Of course, he had the advantage of being in his natural environment.
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Negative
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When I was younger, I liked this show, but now...BLECCH!!! This show is sappy, badly written, and rarely funny. The three leads were all good actors and funny men (Saget's stand up was a lot better than the stuff this show came up with, as was Coulier a better stand up, and Stamos was a better than average actor). After a while, Stamos wanted off the show because it wanted to do more serious stuff (who could blame him?). The show eventually got cancelled when many of the actors demanded more money.<br /><br />Here are a few things that drive me crazy about the show:<br /><br />1. The catch phrases- How many times can one person put up with tiring catch phrases like with 'how rude', 'you got it dude', 'nerdbomber', 'cut it out' and 'have mercy' in a 24 hour time period? <br /><br />2. Kimmy Gibler- the most annoying character ever written for television.<br /><br />3. The writing- stale and cliched as an oreo cookie. There is good cliched writing and bad cliched writing. Full House had bad cliched writing.<br /><br />4. Three men living together in San Francisco- Enough said.<br /><br />5. Unrealistic stuff- Too much to recall.<br /><br />6. Trendy kids- The girls had all the latest mall fashions and you can see posters of trendy recording artists they would be into.<br /><br />Now this show is on Nick @ Nite. I would hardly call it a classic. I have nothing bad to say about the people involved since I think many of them are talented in their own right. But this show was just so sugary sweet, I couldn't stand it after a while.
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Negative
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A sentimental school drama set in Denmark, 1969, "We Shall Overcome" offers a pathetic Danish take on US culture. Frits (Janus Dissing Rathke), a flower-power obsessed, naive 13-year-old, exits with half his ear hanging off from brutal master Lindum-Svendsen's (Bent Mejding) office. Lindum-Svendsen, a school director, portrayed as a fascistoid tyrant, has the local community in control. Lindum-Svendsen's gone too far this time, and with his father, recovering from a mental breakdown (sure, there wasn't enough drama already..), and overly stereotyped hippie music teacher Mr Svale ('Hi, call me Freddie'), Frits stands up for justice.<br /><br />Tell you what. It's so unconvincing, over-(method-)acted, and so full of misery, that as a 'family' picture this grotesque -filled with cliché's- excuse for a movie fails miserably to convince non-Scandinavian audiences. Sorry, kind danish readers, to crash like this into your sentimental journeys.. But it's definitely NOT a tale about a 'boy becoming a man by fighting the system'. The boy never becomes a man, but rather remains a naive, big eyed cry-face. If you call a church of small minded small town folk, led by a dictator like cartoonish character "the system", I'm sorry if I'm missing something.<br /><br />If you're into family pictures, go see Happy Feet instead..
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Negative
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It is a good film for kids who love dogs. It runs a bit slow early on but ends if a flurry of gooped up De Vil. The basic plot is the same as the first movie. The bright side of the movie for adults is the talking bird that thinks it is a dog. The bird talks like a human(Eric Idle of Monty Python) and barks like a dog. It is the comedy that the film needed more of. See it in the matinee so you don't have to pay full price or wait for it to appear on Disney.
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Negative
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This is one of the funniest movies i've ever seen. I rented it as a joke, expecting to get a giggle out of the first few scenes, and let me just say I've never laughed so hard in my life. The first scene where ninjas randomly pop out of the air and start a huge and ridiculous fire fight is one of the most incredibly funny stupid action movie moments of my life. This is not a dinosaur movie, but more a movie that makes fun (and doesn't mean to at all) of the action genre. I didn't see the first two, but judging by the complexity of the plot, I don't think there's to much I missed. If you wanna see a movie that goes great with a six pack or any herbal remedy, than I insist you rent this movie and sit back and watch a 100 years of advancement in cinema get thrown in the trash and get shat on by carnosours
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Negative
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Chris Rock deserves better than he gives himself in "Down To Earth." As directed by brothers Chris & Paul Weitz of "American Pie" fame, this uninspired remake of Warren Beatty's 1978 fantasy "Heaven Can Wait," itself a rehash of 1941's "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," lacks the abrasively profane humor that won Chris Rock an Emmy for his first HBO special. Predictably, he spouts swear words from A to Z, but he consciously avoids the F-word. Anybody who saw this gifted African-American comic in "Lethal Weapon 4," "Dogma," or "Nurse Betty" knows he can elicit more laughter with the F-word than Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy put together. Sadly, despite a few witty one-liners, "Down To Earth" hits Rock bottom both as a contrived comedy and an improbable interracial romance.<br /><br />"Down to Earth" utterly destroys any good will that the Weitz Brothers generated with their landmark gross-out face "American Pie." This disposable drivel qualifies as a contrived as well as confusing comedy with a thoroughly improbable color-blind interracial romance. Unfortunately, a more than competent castamong them "The Full Monty's" Mark Addy, Chazz Palminteri of "Analyze This," "SCTV's" Eugene Levy, and newcomer Brian Rhodes as Charles Wellington, Jr.are wasted in flat-footed, sketchy roles. Hardcore Rock fans will undoubtedly accuse their favorite comedian with trying to fix something that was never broken. Abysmally written by Lance Crouther, Ali Le Roi, Louis CK, and Rock, "Down To Earth" casts Chris as a messenger who rides a bike by day in the Big Apple and gets booed off the stage at night in Harlem's celebrated Apollo Theatre. Poor Lance Barton (Chris Rock) suffers from severe stage fright. Nevertheless, his charitable manager Whitney Daniels (Frankie Faison of "Hannibal") sticks with him through thick and thin. After Lance learns the Apollo Theatre will hold one final amateur night extravaganza, he implores Whitney to get him in the line-up. Excuse me, but if Lance is such a deadbeat stand-up comic, why does the Apollo keep inviting him back? Meanwhile, fate has something else in store for Lance. While pedaling home on his bike, our protagonist spots a pretty lady, Sontee (Regina King of "Jerry Maguire"), crossing the street, but he doesn't see the bus that collides with him and kills him. Wham! Lance Barton levitates skyward with a halo wreathed around his head. In Heaven, which resembles a cruise ship nightclub, Lance learns that an overzealous angel, Mr. Keyes (Eugene Levy of "Stay Tuned"), timed his death 40 years ahead of schedule.<br /><br />Heavenly honcho Mr. King (Chazz Palminteri of "Analyze This"), God's right-hand guy, apologizes and escorts Lance back to earth. The snag is Lance cannot reclaim his corpse, so he must inhabit another body. The best that Mr. Keyes can come up with is ruthless, white, 60-year old tycoon Charles Wellington. Wellington's adulterous wife Amber (Jennifer Coolidge of "American Pie") and his unscrupulous personal aide Winston (Greg Germann of "Sweet November") have just tried to poison him. Reluctantly, before Wellington's body vanishes, Lance accepts it conditionally as a loaner until Keyes can locate a more appropriate body. Meanwhile, Lance-as-Wellington encounters Sontee again. She is a nurse activist protesting his decision to privatize a Brooklyn community hospital that serves the poor. While Regina King brings a surfeit of charisma to her role as a crusading health care worker, she plays a character who bypasses credible motivation in her affairs with Wellington. Although he is no longer black, Lance not only tries to woo Sontee but also win a gig at the Apollo.<br /><br />"Down To Earth" features Rock in his most unfunny role. The comedian's reason for making this movie seems questionable. Reportedly, he ate lunch with Warren Beatty and told Beatty that he loved the original script that scenarist Elaine May had penned for Beatty. Initially, Beatty tried the race-reversal gimmick himself in his own version by trying to cast Muhammad Ali in the title role of "Heaven Can Wait." The deal fell through, and Beatty headlined the movie himself. According to Rock, his longtime co-writers and he thought that they could 'annihilate' this classic. Moreover, he justified his choice of "Heaven Can Wait" based on his philosophy to "Do Something you can only do when you're hot." Earlier, Rock rejected a script about a busload of touring rappers, because he saw little opportunity to stretch his image in such an outing. As a lifeless comedian in "Down to Earth," Rock doesn't so much stretch his image as he inverts it for the worst! This half-baked concert film with an annoying plot does as much to cremate his comic reputation as it does the Weitz Brothers! You know a film about a comedian is in dire straits when a scene at the nightclub is played so you cannot hear the jokes, only the laughter. Similarly, the casting of Mark Addy as Wellington's butler who speaks the Queen's English but is in reality a commoner from Michigan defies logic, too. Addy is an actual Englishman, and he doesn't have to fake an accent; his accent is genuine. The major overriding quandary with "Down to Earth" is the on-again-off-again, look-a-like switcheroo that the characters make so Chris Rock doesn't disappear completely from the sight for more than a few seconds. Although Chris spends half the movie as white guy Wellington, audiences see him largely as Lance, undercutting the comic irony of watching his stocky, bald-headed, Caucasian white, alter-ego perform ghetto humor and chant derogatory hip-hop lyrics. Incredibly, Rock served double-duty as the film's executive producer and one of its four scribes. The mystery is how such a wealth of talent could grind out such an awkward, misguided muddle of a comedy. About the only redeeming feature of "Down to Earth" is Jamshied Sharifi's superb orchestral film score.
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Negative
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Having searched for this movie high and low, I actually found it when I least expected, playing on the Sundance Channel very early in the morning one day. Why I searched endlessly for a small vanity project that Chuck Barris that was made during the last waning years of the TV show, I haven't a clue. The film is simply put horrible. The scripted part that deals with a week that is. Of course the highlight of the film is seeing the real performers that were "too hot for TV" or rejected for some reason or other. That part is still horrid, but campy bad which was enjoyable in it's own way. Now that I saw what I sought after for so long will I watch it again in my lifetime? Resoundingly NO!! Do yourself a favor and just watch the MUCH MUCH better "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" or find old copies of the actual show. The girl act where there just lick popsicles provocatively was fun, but having to endure seeing Jay P. Morgon flash the audience has in all likelihood made me sterile. In hindsight, I'm so very happy that this was massive flop, for if it was a massive hit, there could have been a "The $1.98 Beauty Show Movie" and THAT my friends would surely have brought upon the Apocalypse.<br /><br />My Grade: D
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Negative
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I have three comments to make about this film, which I discovered hanging out forlornly in a lower shelf at Blockbuster. First off, it is interesting to see the approaches film makers take in trying to film essentially unfilmable works. Some have, as Kubrick did with "Lolita", gotten the original author to write a screenplay that is something like the original work. Of course that can't happen here; Kraft-Ebing is long dead. Some have used the premises of the original work as a launch point to go in a completely new, unrelated direction (the recent adaptation of "Tristram Shandy" comes to mind here). You can dumb it down - the film of "Slaughterhouse Five" is to my mind an example of that. Or you can simply take the format of the original and try to render it in cinematic vignettes. That would be the approach of Woody Allen's "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex", and, arguably, this film. Upon consideration, it is probably the only thing one can do with a scholarly work like "Psychopathia Sexualis". The potential loss is that whatever cumulative point the original work had is obscured or destroyed. And so it is here.<br /><br />Point two is the cinematic style. Some would call it an "homage" to Murnau, Pabst, Carl Dreyer, etc., but I think it more crude than that. Its far too heavy handed and self-conscious to be effective for long. It is eventually just annoying.<br /><br />Point three is perhaps a less intellectual observation. How did the people responsible for this manage to make a film about wild sexual deviations and perversion that is so incredibly boring? I found the film impossible to pay attention to, and anyone who is not automatically drawn to depictions of sexual deviance will find it so as well. I don't want to be completely uncharitable and say the film is pointless, but I have to say that whatever point the film makers had is rather obscured by the nature of the source material, the overt copying of filmic styles, and the stubborn refusal to engage the audience on an emotional level (possibly for fear of being accused of titillation).<br /><br />The film is a dubious exercise from the start and doesn't really work for me, I'm sorry to say.
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Negative
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The script was VERY weak w/o enough character arcs to make you care one bit about the characters or what happens to them. The script is way too talky and not enough gore or action to even call it slow paced. The story gets to the point that you just want everyone to shut up and die as quickly as possible so you don't have to listen to them talk this very muted, stiff dialogue. On a technical note, the music mix is way to high and makes it hard to understand what is being said most times. Then again, this could be called a blessing. Overall, this same story could have better been told in a short film w/ a running time under 30 minutes. The obvious "in your face" homages to Sam Raimi and "Evil Dead" would have been good had they been more subtle, but here they seem more like a bald faced rip off. C'mon, this kind of 35mm budget and THIS is the best that could be done? Still, the cinematography, lighting design and shots were very well done indeed.
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Negative
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Some kids are hiking in the mountains, and one of them goes into a large tunnel and discovers some old mummified gladiator. He puts on the gladiator's helmet and spends the rest of the movie killing all the other hikers.<br /><br />This thing is just so utterly senseless it's maddening. Here's a short list of things that don't make any sense:<br /><br />1) A guy and a girl are in their tent and they think they hear something outside. The guy goes out to investigate and finds another hiker outside. Then he hears his girlfriend scream so they head back to the tent - arriving the next morning?!? He was only 50 feet away!<br /><br />2) These two dunderheads then hear another girl scream (What, 100 feet away?), but don't investigate because they're afraid they'll get lost.<br /><br />3) Another guy and a girl are walking around, and in about their 10th scene together the girl informs the guy that due to the circumstances, protocol no longer requires him to address her as professor. I mean, what the...? First off, that's just a really stupid thing to say, secondly he never called her professor in the first nine scenes they were in together.<br /><br />4) A wounded girl attacks Demonicus and he stops her, telling her that part of his gladiator training taught him how to wound without killing. Um, yeah, we kinda noticed she's wounded and not dead because she's up and walking around. But, thanks for that tidbit of information.<br /><br />5) One girl is tied up in Demonicus' lair, and when someone attempts to free her, she instead instructs this person to go and get help. Um, look, idiot, if she set you free, which would take about 5 seconds, there would be no need to get help.<br /><br />And it just goes on and on. The whole middle part of the movie is spent with the two idiots getting lost in the woods, then they fight, then they pitch a tent and ignore the screams of their friends, then they wander around some more. It's just so damned boring and pointless that I turned the DVD off halfway through. <br /><br />None of these characters are sympathetic, especially the ones that get the majority of the screen time. Demonicus himself made me laugh out loud every time I saw him - he looks like a kid in a Halloween costume, scrunching his face up to look evil. He runs, or should I say scampers around like he's gay. The special effects are comedic, the acting is for the most part awful, and nothing makes any sense.<br /><br />Overall, maybe this concept could have produced an enjoyably campy film if they put some more time and effort into it, getting rid of the ludicrous dialogue, creating characters with actual likable personalities, having some sort of logical flow to the action, and maybe even making Demonicus a female character in a sexy gladiator outfit. But no, instead we get this senseless pile of nonsense that will bore you to death.
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Negative
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this movie is not good.the first one almost sucked,but had that unreal ending to make it worth watching.this one has nothing.there's zero scare,zero tension or suspense.this isn't really a horror movie.most of the kills don't show anything.there's no gore to speak of.this could almost be a TV,except for a bit of nudity and a bit of violence.the acting is not very good,either.and don't get me started on the dialogue.as for the surprise ending,surprise,there isn't one.i suppose it could have been worse,although i don't see how.but then again,it is less than 80 minutes long,so i guess that's a good thing.although it felt a lot longer. apparently this is the cut version of the film.i found it for a very cheap price,but it still not worth it.if you want the uncut more graphic version,check out the Anchor Bay edition.anyway,this version of Sleepaway Camp II:Unhappy Campers gets a big fat 1/10 from me. p.s.if you watch this movie,you will probably be a bored and unhappy camper.if you are a real fan,you might want to pick up Anchor Bay's Sleepaway Camp(with survival kit) three disc collection containing the first three movies uncut and with special features
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Negative
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To make a good movie you either need excellent actors or an excellent director. You need at least one of the two. In this Eye of the Needle we have none.<br /><br />I don't even remember the name of the director. He mustn't have done much in his career. I like very much Donald Sutherland but he absolutely cannot be the main actor in a movie. He falls short. Sutherland is excellent in a movie when he appears for not more than 15 minutes. I would say for instance that Sutherland was excellent in JFK of Oliver Stone when he talked to Kevin Costner on the bench of a park for 10 minutes non-stop without even taking a breath. Wonderful. But Sutherland being the principal actor in a movie is no good.<br /><br />Kate Nelligan? She is probably good for TV series. The DVD is awful. Terrible colors. Terrible light. I couldn't even appreciate the scenery of Storm Island for how lousy the photography was.<br /><br />This Ken Follett story was good but it's a pity they turned it into an uninteresting movie.
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Negative
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One of the worst films I have ever seen. How to define "worst?" I would prefer having both eye balls yanked out and then be forced to tap dance on them than ever view this pitiful dreck again. Somehow, One-Hit Wonder Zwick manages a film that simultaneously offends Elvis fans, Mary Kay saleswomen, Las Vegas, gays, FBI agents and the rest of humanity with any intelligence with a shoddy, sloppy farce so forced it deserves to be forsaken ed. How Elvis Presley Enterprises could allow the rights of actual Elvis songs to be used in a film with a central premise that seems to be "The only good Elvis Presley Imitator is a dead one" is beyond me. The worst part of this mess - and that takes some work - is the mangled script: In 1958, Elvis' words and songs that he would speak/perform in the 1970's are quoted! Worst special effect? That Oscar would go to the moron who decided that Elvis' grave, potentially the most photographed/recognizable grave in the world, resembles a pyramid with a gold record glued atop and is situated in the middle of a park somewhere. Potentially, this film's biggest audience would be Elvis fans. However, the rampant stupidity (Nixon gave Elvis a DEA badge, not FBI credentials...and I could go on and on) actually undercuts THAT conventional wisdom. Ugh. I used the word "wisdom" to describe this stupid movie. This is truly a horrible, horrible film.
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Negative
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Definitely not worth the rental, but if you catch it on cable, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the cameos--Iman's appearance is especially self-deprecating. It's also an opportunity to watch all the male supporting cast members from The Sopranos typecast themselves.
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Negative
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"Hey everybody! I've got an idea, we found this egg-shaped thingie from outer space so why don't we thaw it out and open it up?" "Yes, I know that would be the dumbest thing a scientist could do, and it could be filled with contaminating bacteria or viruses unknown to earth and could potentially wipe out the human race, but hey, I want to know what's in it". "And nobody tell NASA, they might take it away from us". "Wow this thingie gives off vibes!" "Yes,really strong ones on contact so don't touch it but it's okay to cut it open". "Hi there handsome, check out my nips". (Later that day); "DO NOT OPEN"!!!!! Uh oh, we have to run all the way to the lab and tell them not to open it because we don't have phones or radios or intercoms even though we have a gazillion dollars worth of other equipment here. "I've never seen such organic technology!" "Yeah, lemme take this stick and stab it.". "I'm getting out of here, I don't care if I do kill the other 6 billion people on Earth, nobody's nukkin' me!" "Look! it's the friendly aliens from "The Abyss"! They want us to come with them". THE END
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Negative
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A movie best summed up by the scene where a victim simulates disembowelment by pulling some poor animal's intestines out from under her T-shirt. Too terrible for words.
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Negative
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I loved watching the original Azumi with its mix of live action manga, compelling storyline, cool soundtrack, directing (Kitamura rocks!), editing, and not to mention the beautiful Aya Ueto who filled the part perfectly. So I was really looking forward to seeing Azumi 2, but after finally seeing it I felt like i had won the lotto and lost the ticket:( Azumi 2 picks up where Azumi left off, however these are completely 2 different movies. The pace is a lot slower, the action is not as exciting and as well choreographed and there is not a lot of character development. This was apparently directed by the same guy responsible for further reducing the value of the TOHO monster franchise (if that is possible!). I agree with some other past reviewers who say that this was a lost opportunity. If only Ryuhei Kitamura continued with this installment. There is however some beautiful Japanese forest scenery to look at while the slow action unfolds and we are introduced all too briefly to bit characters who quickly get killed off. Even the real bad guys, get killed off too easily without too much of a fight. The fight with the Spider guy (straight out of an episode of Monkey!) in the bamboo forest was about the only memorable fight scene. Wheras in Azumi 1 we had a climactic fight scene with barrel camera effects, Azumi 2 brought us the Azumi cape cam!! Azumi's rampage at the end was unconvincing, but Aya still does an okay job. She looks great in the cape...but where did she get it from? I don't think i will be watching this one over and over again! ...what a pity.
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Negative
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I loved watching the original Azumi with its mix of live action manga, compelling storyline, cool soundtrack, directing (Kitamura rocks!), editing, and not to mention the beautiful Aya Ueto who filled the part perfectly. So I was really looking forward to seeing Azumi 2, and after finally seeing it I felt like i had won the lotto:( Azumi 2 picks up where Azumi left off, however these are completely 2 different movies. The pace is a lot faster, the action is more exciting and well choreographed and there is a lot of character development. This was apparently directed by the same guy responsible for further improving the value of the TOHO monster franchise (if that is possible!). I agree with some other past reviewers who say that this was a successfully executed opportunity. If only Ryuhei Kitamura continued with this installment. There is some beautiful Japanese forest scenery to look at while the action unfold, one downside is we are introduced all too briefly to bit characters who quickly get killed off. The real bad guys, get killed off with a huge fight. The fight with the Spider guy (straight out of an episode of Monkey!) in the bamboo forest was the most memorable fight scene. In Azumi 1 we had a climactic fight scene with barrel camera effects, Azumi 2 brought us the Azumi cape cam!! Amazing. Azumi's rampage at the end was convincing, and Aya does a good job. She looks great in the cape...but where did she get it from? I think i will be watching this one over and over again! ...what a blessing.
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Positive
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This is one of those films that makes you want the time you spent watching it back, and then some, like the time you spent accidentally picking it out, the time you spent getting to the video store, etc.<br /><br />First off, the look: It's grainy, it's low budget. Now that in itself doesn't make for a bad film. But the way it was filmed makes the action look unnatural, so that's kind of distracting.<br /><br />Then, the story. 3 gals go on a gal's weekend away from guys. Of course, as EVERYONE does when going on a camping trip, they stop on the way to get earrings. When they arrive at the area in which they're going to stay, they get pulled over by Mr. Ranger Sir, who scolds them for throwing a lit cigarette out of the car at fire season, and then drives them where they're going (a remote cabin). Of course, 2 "cute guys" wander into their vicinity, and Bambi (yes, Bambi) and Aubry are immediately smitten, but apparently Bambi is smitten by anything with two legs. Mady is rather disappointed by this development because she was looking forward to a weekend of forgetting about her ex by getting sh**-faced and stoned with her gal-pals.<br /><br />Oh, and I almost forgot, there's a mean old hermit that lives up that way, that's perhaps someone to not tangle with, and the area & cabin in which they're staying have a sort of "reputation".<br /><br />So of course, sooner or later (unfortunately, MUCH later) some of our weekend wood-visitors begin to die, and find various booby traps (although a couple of them actually hit a little lower than that) and of course, the remaining campers are understandably upset. No cell phone reception of course (who would miss out on a chance to check their cell phone for reception in a movie anymore?). Mr. Ranger Sir keeps popping up at odd times & his behavior seems a bit odd but he has said he will get help.<br /><br />There's a fantastic twist to this that you just won't want to miss too, if you're still awake. Pray that you wake up to a blank screen.<br /><br />The acting in this is terrible, the production values are terrible, and the whole undertaking is just lame & I find it amazing this was even released. Avoid at all costs, 1 out of 10.
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Negative
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As a huge fan of horror films, especially J-horror and also gore i thought Nekeddo burâddo sounded pretty good. I researched the plot, read reviews, and even looked at some photos to make sure it seemed like a good gory and scary movie to watch before downloading it. So excited it had finished and ready to be scared and recoiling in horror at the amazing gore i was expecting i was terribly disappointed. The plot was ridiculous and didn't even make sense and left too much unexplained, the gore was hilarious rather then horrifying, and what was with the cartoon style sound effects ? The acting was probably the only thing mildly scary about it. I did not understand the cactus idea and the way the mothers husband disappeared in the middle of the sea after following a flashing light, they left both pretty unexplained, or perhaps i missed it as my mind couldn't understand what i was actually seeing. I appreciate the way it was supposed to be; shocking and a few scenes (the strange cannibalism and own mother kissing?)certainly were, i just think they went a little bit far and not even in a horrifying way, they made it to unconvincing which made it more believable to be a comedy rather than a horror in my opinion. However it is a very entertaining film and got a lot of laughs out of me and a couple of friends, but sadly we were expecting horror not comedy so its worth a watch for the entertainment value, but don't be expecting a dark, deeply scary and horrifying film; you'll just be disappointed. If this was a horror comedy/spoof i'd probably rate it about a nine, the climax being the weird scene when the husband climbed inside his wife's stomach and closed up her wounds, but as a horror sadly i gave it a one.
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Negative
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(Spoilers galore) This is an absolutely awful film. First of all it has that guy from medium. I guess he's made a career out of playing super doting dads. It was OK the first time he tried to scare his son by pretending to be a monster...but then 10 minutes later they cloyingly did it again! And so it goes, this film moves in excruciating real time. At one point, I started imaging it was days later, until I was reminded that the story line was only at the next day...in the early afternoon still! I'm not really sure who this couple is supposed to be in real life. First of all they are presented as sort of a Manhattan yuppie couple who grew up and had a kid. But they drive an old blue Volvo. Those types stopped driving Volvos decades ago. Today they drive Priuses. But in 2002, I'm sure they still weren't driving Volvos.<br /><br />OK, then there's Wendigo. A "mysterious Indian man" gives the boy a little magic Wendigo statue and tells him of its powerful magic. C'mon...are we still doing ancient Indian mysteries. Just to drive it home, they pan across every Indian statue in their tourist trap upstate New York town. American Indians are portrayed in a manner not seen for decades in this film! Oh, and about Wendigo. He is not actually the cause of the horror. He doesn't kill the kid's dad which is the most horrible thing in the film...he's just killed by an ordinary hick with a grudge and a high powered rifle. The Wendigo only comes out late in the film to avenge the guy who killed the dad...oh, but wait, it seemed earlier that Wendigo was kind of mad at the dad, maybe because he killed a deer...so then Wendigo must have been happy that the dad was killed...but...<br /><br />And so it goes...insulting, boring and nonsensical. There is no reason to watch this film at all.
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Negative
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Maverick cop with family problems and fondness of using his gun Check! Isolated location with valuable object which is begging to be stolen Check! Tasty looking love interest Check! Assorted band of dumb cardboard cannon fodder villains with dodgy European accents Check! German sounding bad guy played by an English actor with a piece of corny dialogue for every occasion Check! Corny one liners Check!<br /><br />Deary me, does this film take the wee wee or what? The clichés come as thick and fast as an avalanche and most of the cast just stand around gawping at just how bad the script is!<br /><br />In a blatantly cheap and cheerful straight to video rip off of Die Hard only set on a mountain (complete with some nicked lines from the aforesaid) we have all the usual action move cliché's ticked off progressively as we go along with some good old fashioned violence and nudity thrown in to wake up anyone in the audience who may just have nodded off.<br /><br />Jack Wild is the cop in full on John McClane mode here who even manages time for the ye ancient bad guy with gun has used all his bullets gag at one point.<br /><br />In amidst this mess, there are a few well known recognisable faces who I can only assume needed the cash and/or were simply playing it for laughs right from the pointless opening scene that had nothing to do with the plot whatsoever through to the final implausible conclusion complete with ropey dialogue and even ropier effects.<br /><br />Looking up this three quid from the Supermarket bargain bin effort on IMDb I am astonished to find that this dud spawned not one but two sequels, I have got to find these gems on DVD! It looks like the first sequel is a rip off of Under Siege 2 and the second sequel, well goodness knows! One thing that is always a bad sign is that the actor playing Jack changes with each film and even the character's name seems to change for the third instalment.<br /><br />Still, blind purchases of cheap DVD's just would not be the same if studios didn't keep trotting out material of this awful quality!!
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Negative
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I began watching this movie with low expectations, as a matter of fact i only noticed it because it was an adaptation of a S.K. novel ( a novel i never read).<br /><br />I'm glad my expectations were low because the movie wasn't nothing close to good, but it manages to keep you interested. What really drags this story down is the work done by the director and the actors. The movie is overlong, hasn't no "nice" shots and no scares, the dialogs are dumb and the special effects are crap.<br /><br />The only things good are that, as i said, it keeps you interested ( i guess the book must be good) without using much horror cliches.<br /><br />My Vote 4/10.
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Negative
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I'm a big fan of Nicolas Cage and I never thought he would work on a movie like this. I couldn't believe the other reviews and I thought it shouldn't be bad to watch it at least once...but trust me, it is.<br /><br />I haven't seen the old movie..but why would they want to remake a movie like this. The very basic idea of a good horror movie is either it should have an extremely intelligent script or it should be extremely graphic. This film doesn't fall under any of those and just remains dumb.I just kept watching the movie hoping it would get interesting at some point , but it never does. <br /><br />So this movie is a big no no for both Horror movie fans as well as for the Cage fans. You could probably for it show up on television.
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Negative
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I read the book a long time back and don't specifically remember the plot but do remember that I enjoyed it. Since I'm home sick on the couch it seemed like a good idea and Hey !! It is a Lifetime movie.<br /><br />The movie is populated with grade B actors and actresses.<br /><br />The female cast is right out of Desperate Housewives. I've never seen the show but there are lots of commercials for the show and I get the gist. Is there nothing original anymore? Sure, but not on Lifetime.<br /><br />The male cast are all fairly effeminate looking and acting but the girls need to have husbands I suppose.<br /><br />In one scene a female is struggling with a male, for her life, and what does she do??? Kicks him in the testicles. What else? Women love that but let me tell you girls something... It's not as easy as it's always made to look.<br /><br />It wasn't all bad. I did get the chills a time or two so I have to credit someone with that.
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Negative
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I saw this for free, thankfully, and wish it was better than it was, but it's really the same old stuff that movie studios seem to foist on us in the last ten years.<br /><br />Ben Stiller and Jennifer Anniston play a couple who are opposites- and yet they are attracted to each other.<br /><br />If that plot line doesn't take you by surprise and thrill you, the movie won't either.<br /><br />Lots of sight gags and fart jokes. Halfway through the movie I began to realize that Ben Stiller really isn't that funny, but he tries VERY hard. And Jennifer Anniston really isn't that pretty, but her HAIR looks great. And Hank Azaria and Phillip Seymore Hoffman must have got paid a great deal of money to be in this kind of average ho-hum movie, I've come to expect more from them.<br /><br />What was interesting was that I saw this after I saw American Splendor, which is a truly funny and original movie- and I compared the two in my head, and found myself wishing that the movie executives would be forced to sit through those two movies back to back- perhaps that would knock some sense into them and<br /><br />they'd start making better movies with unknowns rather than this formulaic stuff that plays best on airplanes.
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Negative
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Without a doubt, this is one of the worst pictures I ever actually paid money to see - the kind of flick you choose out of desperation at the mall cinema during a Christmas holiday when you have missed the start times for anything good but still are dead set on seeing a movie! And that is exactly how I came to see this stink bomb...<br /><br />At the distance of the better part of three decades I can still smell the rotting fish that constitute this story line. Unbelievable plot - that a killer whale carries a grudge against an individual not of the sea - is laughable. And that's about all, except for a completely out-of-place "love theme" that plays over the finish of a film devoid of a love story. At least Charlotte Rampling is lovely (in a two dimensional role) but Richard Harris just chews up the scenery. He was no Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) and this is no "Jaws". Mercifully, I have put most of it out of mind and when I run across it on television air casts I move on immediately. "Danger, Will Robinson!" See the current t.v. commercial showing a husband and wife whale-watching ("Orca - I love Orca...") - at least it is over in sixty seconds. This flick represents 92 minutes of my life that I will never get back.
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Negative
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and shot in Vancouver with the 'mountains' of the low country of South Carolina visible in the background. For heaven's sake, they should have reset the location. There are no coastal mountains in South Carolina. Period.<br /><br />Lame visuals. They should have been beautiful. And the story limped along.<br /><br />I really don't understand why it was such a hit as a book, although I have to admit it's one I haven't read as yet. Usually I read the book and give the film a miss. There was nothing in this movie that made me want to buy the book, or even borrow it from the library.<br /><br />Verdict: The Mermaid Chair seemed pretty shallow to moi.
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Negative
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From around the time Europe began fighting World War II, until the war's end, Hollywood (with significant prodding from the government) made tons of movies which were designed to try and get young men to enlist in the Army, by making the life of a serviceman appear "cool." This is by far the sloppiest, implying that the life of a soldier is devoid of work, you get the best food, and you get to lie around all day listening to Ann Miller on the radio. I am far too young to have participated in WWII, but I think that there was more to it than that. There is the barest cat's whisker of a plot, and a bunch of musical numbers featuring some of the day's leading acts.<br /><br />I think that by 1943, even the most naive of civvies knew that there was more going on overseas than the wacky hijinks portrayed in this movie. While I am sure that it was meant to be viewed as escapist entertainment, I can't help but wonder if the family and loved ones of men fighting in the war, were amused or repulsed by this trivialization of their loved ones' sacrifice.
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Negative
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There has been a lot of love that has been put into Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr Fox", unfortunately all the love is for himself. Granted, there has been a lot of time and effort been put into making this ever so self-consciously quirky universe but if only the same time and effort had been put into the script to try and make it funny. The worrying thing is that I think it was, and this is the best that Wes Anderson could come up with.<br /><br />The animation is good in the close-up shots of the animals, however when the camera is further away everything becomes really harsh on the eyes and to be perfectly honest looks like a bit of a mess. There wasn't really anything special about the acting either, with Wes opting to choose his buddies and big names over more specialised voice actors that could have probably made the film better. I'm pretty sure George Clooney's voice acting resume consists of two cameo appearances in South Park, one of them where he played a dog.<br /><br />The film is too smug and trying way too hard to be clever and different and is typically, despite the film being set in England, all the good animals are typical Americans playing baseball, whilst the bad guys are stereotypical English with the most insulting English accents. I cannot stress how much of a waste of time this film is. I didn't laugh once.
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Negative
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Did I miss something here? This "adaptation" has everything that Brookmyres first novel had. Everything apart from the story, the laughs, the black humour, the political intrigue, the characterisations, the plot, and some semblance of sense.<br /><br />Spoilers;<br /><br />Godamnawful, from beginning to end. They made a mockery of the plot, they had a romance between Parablane and a cop, and what was that all about, Dr Slaughter was portrayed as a bystander, and who the hell was Annette Crosby supposed to be?<br /><br />It looked like they had made a three hour adaptation, then chopped it down to 90 minutes. (Even though the 90 minutes seemed to last forever.) Please, please, do not do this to any other of Brookmyres books, (especially "Country of the blind.)
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Negative
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I give this movie a 3 as it is worse than the cult movies that deserve a proper 2. It does not make sense to you? Well, it doesn't have to. This is another vampire movie with a stupid plot, no, let me rephrase, incredibly idiotic plot, where space cowboys (complete with cowboy hats) battle a space race of moron vampires.<br /><br />Does it get any uglier than this? The only good thing in this movie was Natassia Malthe, with her stunning Norwegian beauty. God, I wish Michael Ironside and the DeLuise brothers would stop accepting dumb roles in dumb movies! I mean, at least SeaQuest was nice! I know Mr. Ironside from a lot of movies, he has acted in 164 movies at this date!! It's true that he was rarely in a major role, but still!
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Negative
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This really should have been a one star, but there was so many, clichés, predictable twists, seen it all before slasher flick parallels that I actually give it an extra star for the fact it made me laugh...although this was never the directors intention Im sure.<br /><br />I don't often write comments about films, they have to be either sensational, or in this ones case really bad.<br /><br />To be honest, as soon as I saw Jeff Fahey in it I knew it was going to be poor as he has a unique nose for picking out the worst films.<br /><br />Somehow the farce of it all made me watch it all the way through, possibly for the hilarious voice of MR T, (not relay Mr T, but you'll know what I mean if you bother to watch this), if you do watch it, make sure you don't pay to see it. This may have worked had they actually put intended comedy into it, but Im sure you'll find the odd laugh here and there at the farce of it all...
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Negative
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There is a really good movie lurking just beneath the surface of the layers upon layers of cheese that is "the Pagemaster".<br /><br />I found this out when I watched this again this morning after neglecting it for years and years. I remember hating it with a passion when it first came out, but this time, I found that the special effects are quite good. The plot is just "the Neverending Story" with a creativity-endectomy, but it's an okay little flick for anyone who just wants some really awesome eye-candy. The animation is amazing, and I especially liked how the animators let their characters look and act a bit more surrealistic than the norm. I'm giving it a grade of three as I *would* have given it a two (just for parody value) if I had ever decided to watch this movie expecting it to absolutely blow my mind story-wise.
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Negative
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According to IMDb, as well as to every other website that holds a review; this "thing" doesn't have a director. Well, that would surely explain a lot! Just a bunch of people that gathered together to shoot some perverted porn sequences and throw in an ultra-thin storyline about devil-worshiping and women sacrifices inside the walls of a secluded sanitarium. "Hardgore" is a prime example of totally demented 70's smut, as it's really made with a minimum of production values and scripting inspiration. Horror movies about satanic cults were hugely popular during the early 70's and pornography as well, so why not combine the two? Here we have a simplistic story about a young nymphomaniac girl who's committed to a mental asylum, and from the first night already, she's drawn into a network of drugs, psychedelic orgies, rape, torture and dildo-action. Really, a LOT of dildo-action. The friendly lesbian nurse tries to warn her, but she has her throat slit even the same night. The horror aspects are truly poorly elaborated, going from laughably un-scary Satan masks to virulent severed penises attacks. The photography and acting performances are almost intolerably amateurish, but what do you expect from a film that features footage of sperm-firing dildos and talking amputated male reproduction organs? Leading lady Justina Lynn is a rather good looking girl with a ravishing body, but most of her co-stars (male & female) are hideous and excessively haired sleaze balls.
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Negative
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WE FAW DOWN <br /><br />Aspect ratio: 1.33:1<br /><br />Sound format: Silent<br /><br />(Black and white - Short film)<br /><br />Stan 'n' Ollie get mixed up with a couple of floozies (Kay Deslys and Vera White) after setting out to visit a theatre which burns down in their absence! Needless to say, their tyrannical wives (Vivien Oakland and Bess Flowers) are not amused...<br /><br />Leo McCarey's OK comedy laid the narrative framework for William Seiter's masterpiece SONS OF THE DESERT (1934), with L&H playing brow-beaten victims of circumstance, forced to tell a monstrous lie which backfires in spectacular fashion. Much of it is very funny, especially the scene in which Stan is teased by Deslys, leading to a violent game of push and shove. However, some of the fun is undercut by Oakland and Flowers, playing their roles completely straight, which adds an element of unpleasantness to the 'henpecked husband' scenario. Originally released in the UK as WE SLIP UP.
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Negative
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...but it'll make you wonder if we had any in the first place! This movie is just as bad as any of today's horrible horror. A man goes around ogling semi-clad ladies, trying to decide which one to kill so he can give his girlfriend a new body. One scene involves a man staggering around and spurting all over the set for a full three minutes, coating everything what what must be well over ten gallons of "blood." The movie also attempts to create a sense that what the man is doing to his girlfriend is wrong and against nature, but the movie is so badly done it's impossible for the audience to dredge up any feeling of shock or outrage. Aimlessly dark and unimpressively sinister, this movie can't even get its own title straight-- the beginning credits say "The Brain That Wouldn't Die," but the end credits list it as "The Head That Wouldn't Die."
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Negative
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In all my years of film-going, only once have I walked out on a film, and that was the dreadful "Stay Tuned." Fortunately, the cinema refunded the ticket and I went to see "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" instead (a minor improvement). That film is "Gone With the Wind" compared to "Dick," a comedy so unfunny that it nearly became the second film I ever walked out of. "Dick" was so unfunny it was even impossible to laugh AT it, let alone laugh with it.<br /><br />Granted, paying to see a movie with a title like "Dick" suggests that it will be filled with inane "dick" jokes and wind up a huge letdown, and yet I had high hopes because of the notable cast (Daniel Hedaya, Bruce McCullough, Dave Foley, Kristen Dunst, etc., etc.) and a premise that at least promised something fresh. What the film delivered was, as portended, four woefully predictable "dick" jokes, comic timing suffering from jetlag, and a premise that wore thin after the first five minutes. In short, it was the Watergate scene from "Forrest Gump" stretched--nay, laid on a rack and mangled--over 90+ excruciating minutes.<br /><br />As soon as you understand that the two main characters--airless, insipid squealers who gasp and roll eyeballs incessantly--will participate in every major Watergate event, you begin to mentally check off the plot as it progresses: 18 and a half minutes erased from the Nixon tapes, CHECK; the Deep Throat meetings with Woodward and Bernstein, CHECK; John Dean getting a change of heart and testifying, CHECK. The process drags out more languidly and about as engaging as the real Watergate affair with about as much laugh-getting to boot. And though it posits to be an amusing re-deconstruction of the events leading to President Nixon's resignation, it turns into a paint-by-the-numbers, choose-your-own-adventure, fill-in-the-blanks comedy that says very little and entertains even less.<br /><br />Even the film's strong point--the aforementioned cast--is bewilderingly unproductive here. The most disappointing of all is Harry Shearer as G. Gordon Liddy. Trapped as he is behind the thick Liddy moustache and strait-jacketed in this numbingly morose screenplay, Shearer mumbles a few lines, tries desperately to leer from behind the prosthetic nose and eyebrows, then disappears. Dave Foley, one of the comic masterminds from Kids in the Hall (two others, Bruce McCullough and Mark McKinney also appear in this film--ah, the blessings of nepotism) fares badly as well. His H.R. Haldeman occasionally lends a much-need lightening of the funeral plot, but the funniest thing about him is the buzz-cut he sports--perhaps the films funniest bit of all. And then there's Daniel Hedaya as Richard Nixon--oops, I mean "Dick." (Ha ha how amusingly funny.) He manages to play a solid Nixon, avoiding the pitfalls (such as overdone make up, rubbery nose and false teeth a la Anthony Hopkins) while preserving the essence (the vacillations between human tenderness and coarseness). I seem to be forgetting someone . . . oh yes, the two stars of the film, those over-bubbly teenagers. Can't remember their names, perhaps because I have repressed their performances. Nothing could be farther from funny; nothing could be more painful than having to endure their deliverly that ran the gamut of "hyperactive" and "super-hyperactive" with an occasional "pouty" tossed in.<br /><br />This film seemed to be a bad excuse to string together a 70s soundtrack and parade outrageous period clothing, both of which seem to be the norm these days for films and TV shows set in the "Me Decade." But the clothes and the music wind up being an ersatz substitute for true characterization and plot, a kind of extra-plot shorthand that the producers hope will compensate for anemic writing.<br /><br />The only possible use for this film is years down the road when any one of its talented cast appears on David Letterman or Conan O'Brien. This dreadful cinematic excretion will be dragged out to embarrass and hopefully humble the stunned guest star. The sad thing is that the real bad guys in all this--the writers and producers--will be far from the cameras gaze, possibly cooking up another disaster such as this.<br /><br />
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Negative
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I was searching through Hollywood video last night with a friend trying to find a good-looking horror movie to watch over the New Year's weekend. As I was looking through the shelves, "Severed" spotted my eye, and I grabbed it off the shelf and it looked like it might be a decent B-grade horror movie. The cover looked fairly good. The plot sounded semi-interesting. So I rented it. What a mistake. Don't be fooled by the cover, which actually looks decent. I'm thinking that more money was spent on the cover artwork than the movie itself. The film follows two police detectives who are tracking down a voodoo-inspired, ritualistic serial killer called "The Head Hunter", who is decapitating victims left and right in some unnamed city (probably Los Angeles), and they become drawn into his world of ritualized murder.<br /><br />Story sound somewhat good? Well, it is, and this movie could've been halfway decent. But good God, it was bad! Almost everything about it was laughable. The opening scene features some redheaded actress in a car trying to talk on this huge, outdated cell phone, and for whatever reason, she goes outside and talks to some guy. Then, a shadow comes up behind them, hacks off his head, and the girl drops to the ground and starts crawling (for absolutely no reason) while trying to dial 911. Sound ridiculous? Yep, you bet it is. The entire movie looks like it was filmed on a VHS-quality camera, and I'm assuming it was. The acting was mostly awful, and the special effects were far from believable. And the scenes with the policemen on the phone were awful - the voice on the other line was echoing and it sounded like it was being recorded in someone's bathroom. Everything about this movie was simply amateurish and tedious, and it didn't hold my interest for very long, and I often found myself bored and tired, mostly because of the bad acting and the horrible cinematography. The pacing was bad. Everything was just bad.<br /><br />Overall, "Severed" is a failed attempt at what could have been a decent B-movie. The plot was good and I think if this film had been handled better and had a higher budget, it could've been alright. But this movie fell flat on it's face. If you're expecting something semi-decent, you'll be sorely disappointed. Only recommended if you can tolerate D-grade horror flicks. Otherwise, you'll probably want to stay away from this straight-to-video garbage. It had a little potential, but it was beyond a mess. 1/10.
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Negative
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Complete waste of time.... This movie is not comedy, it's not drama, it's not romance...not even teenage comedy at least!!! Story... it should be some turn-over one end... but it's so disappointing! When movie has a turn-over on end I expect that turn-over to make movie even better (exp. "Fight Club") but this turn-over makes movie even worse.... When I watch teenage comedy, and I don't do that very often, I expect lousy jokes and bunch of nudeness... Jokes are too lousy and there is no nudity... You got only one....very good looking I must admit... girl, and that's that! And she's fully dressed whole movie! Acting is bad... like soap series... Don't waste your time! There are porns with better story and acting!<br /><br />(sorry on my bad English)
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Negative
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There's plenty to appreciate here: spectacular locations and flying sequences; period costumes, props and sets; and competent writing and acting. However, to enjoy a drama, we need at least one principal who exhibits some qualities that we can like or admire. In this bunch of catty snobs, we found only one character who is at all likable a hapless enlisted man in a fleeting peripheral role as their helpless victim. From the reviews here, it is clear that we are completely out of step, but we did not find their malicious-schoolgirl behavior amusing or entertaining. Even the dog is detestable. We threw in the towel after two of the six episodes, so you should discount these observations accordingly, but what I could find written about this mini-series gave us no cause to expect character transformation or redemption.
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Negative
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if they gave me the option of negative numbers I'd use it. This movie was truly god-awful. I went into the theaters expecting it to be horrible, and it somehow managed to exceed my expectations.<br /><br />The script was weak, the acting was painful. I wanted to walk out but my friend was driving and wanted to get her moneys worth, I think we were both disappointed.<br /><br />The growing of the breasts when the girls got their super power and changing of the hair color was just wrong. Eddie Izzard just seemed wrong for the part of super villain, he came off as oddly weak and silly. Jenny Johnsons (Uma Thurman) came off as psychotic and strange, as did Matt's (Luke Wilson) friend Vaughn (Rainn Wilson.
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Negative
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As a Dane I'm proud of the handful of good Danish movies that have been produced in recent years. It's a terrible shame, however, that this surge in quality has led the majority of Danish movie critics to lose their sense of criticism. In fact, it has become so bad that I no longer trust any reviews of Danish movies, and as a result I have stopped watching them in theaters.<br /><br />I know it's wrong to hold this unfortunate development against any one movie, so let me stress that "Villa Paranoia" would be a terrible film under any circumstances. The fact that it was hyped by the critics just added fuel to my bonfire of disillusionment with Danish film. Furthermore, waiting until it came out on DVD was very little help against the unshakable feeling of having wasted time and money. <br /><br />Erik Clausen is an accomplished director with a knack for social realism in Copenhagen settings. I particularly enjoyed "De Frigjorte" (1993). As an actor he is usually funny, though he generally plays the same role in all of his movies, namely that of a working-class slob who's down on his luck, partly because he's a slob but mostly because of society, and who redeems himself by doing something good for his community. <br /><br />This is problem number one in "Villa Paranoia"; Clausen casts himself as a chicken farmer, which is such a break from the norm that he never succeeds in making it credible. <br /><br />It is much worse, however, that the film has to make twists and turns and break all rules of how to tell a story to make the audience understand what is going on. For instance, the movie opens with a very sad attempt at visualizing the near-death experience of the main character with the use of low-budget effects and bad camera work. After that, the character tells her best friend that she suddenly felt the urge to throw herself off a bridge. This is symptomatic of the whole movie; there is little or no motivation for the actions of the characters, and Clausen resorts to the lowest form of communicating whatever motivation there is: Telling instead of showing. Thus, at one point, you have a character talking out loud to a purportedly catatonic person about the way he feels, because the script wouldn't allow him to act out his feelings; and later on, voice-over is abruptly introduced, quite possibly as an afterthought, to convey feelings that would otherwise remain unknown to the audience due to the director's ineptitude. Fortunately, at this point you're roughly an hour past caring about any of the characters, let alone the so-called story.<br /><br />The acting, which has frequently been a problem in Clausen's movies, can be summed up in one sad statement: Søren Westerberg Bentsen, whose only other claim to stardom was as a contestant on Big Brother, is no worse than several of the heralded actors in the cast.<br /><br />I give this a 2-out-of-10 rating.
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Negative
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One of the most disgusting films I have ever seen. I wanted to vomit after watching it. I saw this movie in my American History class and the purpose was to see an incite on the life of a farmer in the West during the late 1800's. What we saw were pigs being shot and then slaughtered, human birth, branding. Oh and at the end there was a live birth of a calf and let me tell you that the birth itself wasn't too bad, but the numerous fluids that came out drove most people in my class to the bathroom. The story itself was OK. The premise of the story is a widow and her daughter and they move to the west to be a house keeper of this cowboy. They live a life of hardship and it is an interesting a pretty accurate view of life in the West during the late 1800's. But if you have a choice, do not see this movie.
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Negative
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New York, I Love You, or rather should-be-titled Manhattan, I Love Looking At Your People In Sometimes Love, is a precise example of the difference between telling a story and telling a situation. Case in point, look at two of the segments in the film, one where Ethan Hawke lights a cigarette for a woman on a street and proceeds to chat her up with obnoxious sexy-talk, and another with Orlando Bloom trying to score a movie with an incredulous demand from his director to read two Dostoyevsky books. While the latter isn't a great story by any stretch, it's at least something that has a beginning, middle and end, as the composer tries to score, gets Dostoyevky dumped in his lap, and in the end gets some help (and maybe something more) from a girl he's been talking to as a liaison between him and the director. The Ethan Hawke scene, however, is like nothing, and feels like it, like a fluke added in or directed by a filmmaker phoning it in (or, for that matter, Hawke with a combo of Before Sunrise and Reality Bites).<br /><br />What's irksome about the film overall is seeing the few stories that do work really well go up against the one or two possible 'stories' and then the rest of the situations that unfold that are made to connect or overlap with one another (i.e. bits involving Bradley Cooper, Drea DeMatteo, Hayden Christensen, Andy Garcia, James Caan, Natalie Portman, etc). It's not even so much that the film- set practically always in *Manhattan* and not the New York of Queens or Staten Island or the Bronx (not even, say, Harlem or Washington Heights)- lacks a good deal of diversity, since there is some. It's the lack of imagination that one found in spades, for better or worse, in Paris J'taime. It's mostly got little to do with New York, except for passing references, and at its worst (the Julie Christie/Shia LaBeouf segment) it's incomprehensible on a level that is appalling.<br /><br />So, basically, wait for TV, and do your best to dip in and out of the film - in, that is, for three scenes: the aforementioned Bloom/Christina Ricci segment which is charming; the Brett Ratner directed segment (yes, X-Men 3 Brett Ratner) with a very funny story of a teen taking a girl in a wheelchair to the prom only to come upon a great big twist; and Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as an adorable quite old couple walking along in Brooklyn on their 67th wedding anniversary. Everything else can be missed, even Natalie Portman's directorial debut, and the return of a Hughes brother (only one, Allan) to the screen. A mixed bag is putting it lightly: it's like having to search through a bag of mixed nuts full of crappy peanuts to find the few almonds left.
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Negative
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Although it's an R rated movie, I really doubt that you'll really enjoy it unless you're a teenager<br /><br />Why? Because there's no real plot, no character development,no funny jokes. <br /><br />The only thing that this movie has plenty of is nudity. Tons and tons of naked or almost naked chicks (pretty nice ones I might add) to feast your eyes on.<br /><br />I really can't understand why this movie has the American Pie title since it's only a bad combination between an erotic movie and a comedy without succeeding in being either of them.<br /><br />My suggestion is to watch this movie only if you want to see some naked chicks, but you're too shy to rent/buy an erotic movie. <br /><br />Gave it 1/10 for the 2 smiles i had in the entire movie and another 2/10 for the nice chicks
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Negative
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I got all excited when I saw the ads for this movie because I recently read the book and really enjoyed it. The movie, however, did not meet my expectations. Having read the book recently prepared me for big let down as often happens when stories are translated into movies. The characters didn't seem to fit very well with the book. The direction was weak. I had a hard time getting into the characters. There wasn't a real connection with the viewer about what was going on. The dialog didn't explain adequately what was happening. It just seemed slapped together and rushed through. All in all I was very disappointed with the movie. I suppose if you haven't read the book, it might be ok by itself. At the very least, it might entice you to read the book, which you'll probably enjoy more.<br /><br />
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Negative
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I got all excited when I saw the ads for this movie because I recently read the book and really enjoyed it. The movie met my expectations. Having read the book recently prepared me. The characters fit very well with the book. The direction was strong. I had an easy time getting into the characters. There was a real connection with the viewer about what was going on. The dialog explained adequately what was happening. It just seemed perfectly together. All in all I was very happy with the movie. I suppose if you haven't read the book, it might be ok by itself. At the very least, it might entice you to read the book, which you'll probably enjoy just as much.<br /><br />
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Positive
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I have seen it. It's not "good" but interesting in an understated way. The boys in it are quite naturalistic but................the graphic/gratuitous final gang rape scene is repugnant and -oh yes- the arbitrary insertion of second world war footage is offensive in the way it attempts to compare real horror with this misogynistic contrivance. Real atrocity is real- this film is just atrocious. However, the film has a look which can draw you in. But it seems to me that is the "Emperor's New Clothes", but in fact in reverse. The film looks good, but the direction, story, content and final feeling you take away from this film is vacuous. If a feeling can be vacuous-this is it.
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Negative
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I was expecting a little something from "K-911", I mean it did look like a cute movie that I could get into. I always did love the dog comedy movies. But it looked like it was supposed to be Jame's movie, not Jerry Lee's. The plot was pretty lame and the two love interests really didn't have chemistry to begin with. Not to mention that James seemed to have a total sexist view in the movie despite the fact the writer wasn't going in that direction. James just really ticked me off for more than half the film. The dogs were the true stars and that's pretty sad that they out shined the actors.<br /><br />So, I'm glad it's not just me on IMDb who agrees that this was a pretty stupid movie. But hopefully, James will realize it was his brother Jim who was the talented one, no offense, but not everyone can be their star sibling. Don't you wish Ashlee Simpson would take that same advice? :D <br /><br />3/10
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Negative
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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
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Negative
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This is the worst movie I have ever seen. The Avengers held this dubious honor
but no longer. The acting in "Jill the Ripper" is terrible and was only eclipsed by the plot. This movie is as intellectually stimulating as the Telletubbes. It doesn't know whether it wants to be an S&M flick or a really bad thriller. Only watch under extreme intoxication or if you're bed ridden and need a leather clad distraction. This script should be reworked into a porn, it wouldn't take very much effort and would have a longer shelf life. A porn, even a bad porn, wouldn't do the damage to Dolf Lundgren's career the way that this movie has.
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Negative
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this movie was just plain dumb i do not think it was scary at all i went in hoping to be shocked and scared but was mostly laughing some of the scenes were just to fake and thrown together blood scenes were extremely over cg and some of the mutants were ridiculously gay looking it also sucked because the acting was just plain horrible u think they could get some good actors and most of the characters i hated just because how stupid and lame they acted even though they were supposed to be in the military i get to watch movies for free and seen many people walking out im guessing because it was so dumb kinda glad i didn't have to pay for it in short DUMB ASS MOVIE don't see it...but then again thats my opinion
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Negative
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The film began with Wheeler sneaking into the apartment of his girlfriend. Her aunt (Edna May Oliver--a person too talented for this film) didn't like Wheeler--a sentiment I can easily relate to. The aunt decided to take this bland young lady abroad to get her away from Wheeler. They left and Wheeler invested in a revolution in a small mythical kingdom because they promised to make him their king. At about the same time, Woolsey was in the same small mythical kingdom and he was made king. So when Wheeler arrived, it was up to the boys to fight it out, but they refused because they are already friends--which greatly disappointed the people, as killing and replacing kings is a national pastime.<br /><br />I am a huge fan of comedy from the Golden Age of Hollywood--the silent era through the 1940s. I have seen and reviewed hundreds, if not thousands of these films and yet despite my love and appreciation for these films I have never been able to understand the appeal of Wheeler and Woolsey--the only comedy team that might be as bad as the Ritz Brothers! Despite being very successful in their short careers in Hollywood (cut short due to the early death of Robert Woolsey), I can't help but notice that practically every other successful team did the same basic ideas but much better. For example, there were many elements of this film reminiscent of the Marx Brother's film, DUCK SOUP, yet CRACKED NUTS never made me laugh and DUCK SOUP was a silly and highly enjoyable romp. At times, Woolsey talked a bit like Groucho, but his jokes never have punchlines that even remotely are funny! In fact, he just seemed to prattle pointlessly. His only funny quality was that he looked goofy--surely not enough reason to put him on film. Additionally, Wheeler had the comedic appeal of a piece of cheese--a piece of cheese that sang very poorly! A missed opportunity was the old Vaudeville routine later popularized by Abbott and Costello as "who's on first" which was done in this film but it lacked any spark of wit or timing. In fact, soon after they started their spiel, they just ended the routine--so prematurely that you are left frustrated. I knew that "who's on first" had been around for many years and used by many teams, but I really wanted to see Wheeler and Woolsey give it a fair shot and give it their own twist.<br /><br />Once again, I have found yet another sub-par film by this duo. While I must admit that I liked a few of their films mildly (such as SILLY BILLIES and THE RAINMAKERS--which I actually gave 6's to on IMDb), this one was a major endurance test to complete--something that I find happens all too often when I view the films of Wheeler and Woolsey. Where was all the humor?!
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Negative
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Come on Tina Fey you can do better then this. As soon as the movie started i knew how it would end. Sure it was funny at times. Even laugh out loud funny. But there isn't enough laughs to save this movie. I don't recommend buying this. At the most i recommend renting it but thats all. Baby Mama has some funny scenes but is predictable and fails to have the heartwarming ending it strives for.<br /><br />Tina Fey and Amy Poalher made a good team. Mean Girls is one of my favorite movies. Tina Fey and Amy Poalher both did great in that and they do good in this. But this isn't there best. Baby Mama had a great supporting cast. Dane Cook, Sigourney Weaver and Steve Martin add to the casts greatness.<br /><br />Another pregnancy movie has hit the cinema world. After the great Knocked Up and Juno, Baby Mama looks very average when compared. Knocked Up and Juno are Hilarious, Heartwarming and have endings that leave you with a smile on your face. Baby Mama's ending was unfunny and dull.<br /><br />Baby Mama wasn't the best comedy of the year and it doesn't try to be. I recommend it but don't expect it to be totally hilarious. Expect a average comedy that doesn't give the big emotional ending it tries to have. I give Baby Mama.....<br /><br />4/10
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Negative
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Well, finally got to see the remake last night in London, unintentionally hilarious, sexless and devoid of any real humour. I don't really know where to start, whilst I was entertained by this strange homage, it didn't really move me. The acting is screamingly hammy, there is no original music, the costumes are far too 'Disney' there is a ridiculous 'six months later' insert after the burning of Nic Cage (which didn't come soon enough for my liking) The bit with Cage in the bear suit had the audience suppressing mirth as did the comedy punching out of various 'baddies' on the island. It's such a weird remake that I cant quite believe I saw it, it reminded me of something that The Comic Strip presents would have done in the eighties, a bit like their Hollywood interpretation of the Miner's Strike, very strange!
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Negative
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OK, admittedly as an Orthodox woman who LIVES in Boro Park, I'm going to be a little biased against this film. However, it seemed that Boaz Yakin's sole purpose in making this film was Orthodox-bashing. With our wigs, modest attire, and separate seating, we're a pretty easy target already. Yakin never made it past the surface. The result is a film with more holes than Swiss cheese: 1. Yosi tells Sonia off for loving him more than G-d or their parents. Then he deliberately defies his father's order that he not go swimming because of his poor health. 2. Sonia flips out at her son's bris. Why would a Hasidic woman from Monsey have such a strong reaction? It's hard to believe that she never attended one before. Let's face it, even Reform Jews hold bris milah ceremonies nowadays. 3. Was Mendel sleeping during his chosson classes? He's supposed to satisfy his wife's passions in bed and refrain from kissing her in the street. Especially in the middle of the busiest street in Boro Park! 4. Sonia and Mendel had to have been married for over a year, and he just now noticed that they were not meant for each other? A little clue--arranged marriage does not mean that the girl has to take the first guy her parents set her up with. Nor will she be shunned by the community if the marriage doesn't work out. 5. If Sonia really wanted to get into the jewelry business that badly, she did not have to go through her lecherous brother-in-law. There are Orthodox female doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc. Sonia came off as more whiny than sympathetic. Instead of taking control of her life, she sat back and waited for things to happen, and then complained that she didn't like the outcome. That's not standing up to one's environment; that's pandering to stereotype. Frankly, I think she got what she deserved.
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Negative
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slow, incomprehensible, boring. Three enthusiastic words that describe the movie of the book. This is surely a case where the movie should never have been made at the expense of the book. The best part of the movie was the scenery, excellent. The worst part was the slow moving interactions of the actors which combined with endless meaningful glances. The editing is abrupt and patchy. However, despite this, the actors worked very hard at least trying to be a little believable with a terrible script. It was startling that although set in Peru there was hardly a person of Peruvian descent wandering about the set - even in the flashback scenes depicting Peru in the 17th century. If you have any sense of history, try to avoid this movie.
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Negative
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After watching Awake,I led to a conclusion:director and screenwriter Joby Harold made Awake with the intention of laughing at the spectator,for the simple fact the movie is full of ridiculous elements.Awake has a lot of plot holes and it is full of absurd and ridiculous elements(for example,the hospital uniform the spirit of the main character uses...did the ghost of a doctor leave it in the floor ?).The concept behind this movie is slightly ingenious but all the plot holes and the absurd things make of this a stupid and crappy film.With the exception of the great Lena Olin,all the actors bring bad performances.Hayden Christensen has zero expressions and the same applies for Jessica Alba.The extraordinary actor Terrence Howard is enormously wasted on his role.Awake makes a laugh of the spectator.It's so ridiculous and full of absurd things that it's impossible to take it seriously.My recommendation is:skip this crappy movie.
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Negative
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This is truly terrible: painfully irritating stylised performers screech and mug gratingly incoherent dialogues which take place in scenes which seem to have no purpose, no beginning, middle or end, cut together without any apparent narrative or even cognitive intention, all in the service of some entirely uninteresting and almost undetectable "story". What makes it worse is the film's pretentions to "style": suddenly a remote-head crane shot spirals downwards, and, without any apparent reason there are sudden whip-pans or wobblyhand-held sections: all this "style" merely serves to magnify the almost unbelievably huge misconception of the project and the almost offensive vacuity of the material. Definitely a candidate for the worst film ever made.
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Negative
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Renowned cinematographer Freddie Francis (Glory, The Elephant Man) directs this pretty bad horror/drama film. 19th Century England has a different view of how the practice of medicine should be handled than Dr. Thomas Rock, the law stating that only the bodies of hung criminals can be studied and experimented on. But the stockpile of these bodies is a small one, and Rock needs more - and he prefers them fresher. Being a maverick within his circle, he begins to pay people to find bodies for him to study and test on. Desperate sleazebags Robert Fallon and Timothy Broom get wind of this job opportunity and begin to murder people and sell these bodies to Rock. Naturally, this kind of action has even worse consequences than practicing on the dead bodies of non-criminals, and leads to trouble for everyone. While the overall story sounds intriguing on paper, almost everything about The Doctor And The Devils is laughably bad.<br /><br />After the first fifteen minutes of the film you are already beginning to question your decision of sitting down to watch the film. The entire look of the film is just ugly. Seeing as how the film takes place in the slums of England during the 19th Century, the filmmakers were probably going for an "ugly" look, but they don't do it in an artful way. Everything from the sets to the cinematography just look cheap, feeble, and disgusting. Also, just about everything scene is filled with something that you simply cannot take seriously, and most of the time this has to do with someone (both in the small and large roles) doing something that looks or sounds completely ridiculous. Francis sure didn't help out his actors much.<br /><br />Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea play the twisted buddies of the film, Fallon and Broom respectively, and are very bombastic but very bad. Their characters are by nature crazy, but Pryce and Rea overact the parts to death. They especially have trouble keeping the same accent from shot to shot - Pryce in particular goes from Cockney to Irish to Long John Silver to some kind of lagoon creature and so on and so forth. It's also a humor riot to see Twiggy in this film at all, let alone playing an in-demand street whore, since she can't act to save her life (though her song during the final credits isn't so funny). Boy she sure came a long way: from "flower power" to "I'll take mee clothes off for a shillin'!" As bad as those three actors are in this film, Julian Sands takes home the award for the worst performance of the film. He is just as lame as it gets, giving one laugh-out-loud attempt after another at portraying anger, love, happiness, anxiety - pick an emotion, any emotion! <br /><br />There's only one good thing about The Doctor And The Devils: Timothy Dalton's performance of Dr. Rock. Despite being surrounded by cinematic sewage, Dalton is quite excellent; giving an electric portrayal of an overly driven yet good natured man. Too bad the rest of the film could not have been as good as Mr. Dalton....
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Negative
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This is meant to be a comedy but mainly bad taste, and nothing remotely causing a smile in the film. The movie is about a couple trying for a child, and those people in real life who are in that situation will wince at the depictions that are portrayed. For instance scenes at a fertility clinic are not in the least funny and are quite frankly embarrassing. The male lead who plays a construction worker and in his hard hat comes across as a poor excuse for a reject from Village People. The female lead is trying to look 20 years younger than she is. Both leads come across as unappealing,unattractive and completely unconvincing. There are various ridiculous and totally unassuming gratuitous scenes in the film, for example with a budget airline, which is devoid of any humor. The only reason I give this 3/10 instead of 1/10 is one mark for Shirley Maclaine, who is a a class above anything else in the pic, and one mark for some half decent(albeit old) music.
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Negative
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This ludicrous and inept film is certainly the most misguided version of "Hamlet" to ever reach the screen. Branagh's approach to the material can only be described as vulgar; going to such lengths as depicting Ophelia in a straight jacket, having Fortinbras' army appear suddenly on the horizon (looking very much like the climax of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail") when the palace is apparently guarded only by Francisco (who shouts the very un-Shakespearean cry of "ataaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack" before being gunned down), and multitudes of star cameos that harken back to the days of Jimmy Cagney's Bottom and Mary Pickford's Kate.<br /><br />Branagh chose to set his film in an Edwardian setting but at the same time decided to employ an almost uncut text, so that frequently the dialogue that is firmly rooted in Elizabethan mentality makes no sense in the context that it is being performed. And Branagh does not concern himself with such textural subtleties as the ambiguous nature of Hamlet and Olphelia's relationship, treating the audience to a vulgar nude sex scene between the couple that tosses any ambiguity right out the stained glass window.<br /><br />The uncut text does allow Branagh to indulge in his favorite cinematic pastime: more footage of Kenneth Branagh. This is never so apparent as in the "How All Occasions Inform Against Me" speech that ends the first half of the nineteen hour film (at least that's how it feels), which attempts to play to a dramatic crescendo along the lines of Gone With The Wind's "I'll never be hungry again." This may serve Branagh's ego, but it does not serve Shakespeare or the speech: when I saw the film in the theater, I leaned over to my companion and snickered "Great Moments With Mr. Hamlet." Branagh saves the funniest and most tasteless moment for last, when he attempts to out-do the Olivier film and its justly celebrated death of Claudius by having Hamlet jump from off a high tower onto the monarch, impaling him with a sword. Branagh's Dane does in the king by heroically throwing an apparently magic rapier from across the palace to run through Claudius' heart with a super hero's bulls eye. The only thing that saved the moment from being unbearably maddening was that it was so off-the-wall funny.<br /><br />While this film has been praised in some quarters as a serious depiction of the tragedy, it is in fact nothing but a star-studded display of a once-talented filmmaker being overtaken by his own narcissism. The Emperor has no clothes, and this Hamlet has nothing to offer but a few unintended laughs and the appalling sight of one man's ego out of control.
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Negative
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A childless couple (Brooke Adams, Jeff Hayenga) go to a doctor (James Karen) to try to conceive. It works but Adams slowly becomes aware that there's something seriously wrong with the baby...<br /><br />Pretty interesting idea is thoroughly done in by a lousy script--the basic idea is OK but becomes screamingly predictable towards the end. I saw every "twist" coming. The direction is poor--he seems to have no idea how to shoot a basic scene. The production values are--to be nice--lousy. Very shabby. And, the gore scenes are too unpleasant (I almost turned it off when a pregnant woman started stabbing herself in the stomach) with lousy special effects. The film completely derails at the end when it becomes quite clear they had no idea HOW to end this film.<br /><br />Some good acting makes it somewhat bearable. Adams, Hayenga and Karen are all good at their roles and kept me watching but that was about it. This film barely got released in 1991 and still remains unknown--it's easy to see why. I give it a 4.
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Negative
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A youth gets a bad hair day, goes out on a hill, and falls into where he can't escape. Then, he meets MR. ATLAS, a "mythological" dude from 2,000 years ago as his very best friend, and an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-and-sound-alike. His Herculean strength helps the boy out of danger, and later adjusts to modern life. So what's the big deal? This is the lousiest idea for a "family" outing! Either way, this one shouldn't have been attempted at all, really! Our fictional character of might and brawn is nothing more than a typical stranger who appears ordinary to the rest of the universe. To add to the blasphemy is the lack of anything new or appealing, and before you know it, there is some attempted violence that doesn't qualify this as "family" entertainment. The scene where Atlas complains of his undershorts is gaggling, though. Just spend a nice, quiet afternoon in the park for a change.
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Negative
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The first one was different and funny. This attempt should have never left the studio. This movie does not make you laugh. It is a weak attempt at gross out humor. The movie picks out current and old movies to rip-off. This time the jokes seem used and overdone. The audience that I saw it with only re-acted to Hannibal dinner scene and was otherwise asleep.
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Negative
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Definitely, definitely the worst film I've ever seen, no questions asked! Contradictors of this opinion might argue that this title should not be judged by the same criteria as others, since it's an independent, low-budget film, but c'mon already the amateurism and meager innovation is horrifying.<br /><br />Agreeing with everything that has been said about this film, for example the mind numbingly weak acting (when it's this bad you take another go at shooting the scene, god damn it), the thing I found the most annoying was the total lack of common sense in the script, assuming such a thing existed during the production. There was an obvious absence of a dialogue with respect for the viewers, the girls switched personalities several times and they seemed to show absolutely no sing of any rationality or even brains - five relatively fit girls against one slight female psychopath gang up on her, why don't you?<br /><br />The only thing that can be regarded as somewhat of a conquest for this title is the camera not leaving the van at any time thus the viewer seeing everything from inside it - which is, as the rest of the film, a good idea executed exponentially dreadfully.<br /><br />
oh and by the way, this movie is NOTHING like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield or any other title filmed with a hand-held camera this is an effect and not a trait! Used cleverly it can be breathtaking, but in this case it's an excuse for inadequate cinematography.
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Negative
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Recap: Ron is about to marry Mel. They are deeply and love and certain they are perfect for each other even though they met just a few months ago. Todd, Ron's brother in law to be is not so happy. He is afraid the marriage is a threat to his cushy job in the family business and decides to arrange Ron's bachelor party. But his real plan is to put Ron in a compromising situation, get evidence and break Ron and Mel up.<br /><br />Comments: Supposed to be a sequel to a comedy classic but it isn't funny at all. It is mostly a pubertal show and a juvenile excuse to show scantily clad women. Actually, in a way, it is almost impressive have many you can put in there, because they are everywhere. Unfortunately that is also one of the signs of a movie that can't support itself. It simply isn't good enough.<br /><br />It has three redeeming points though, or actually three actors that is worth a better script than this. It is lead actor Josh Cooke who actually manages to give an impression of some common sense. Sara Foster I know has more talent than to do movies like this, and Emanuelle Vaugier seem to have a lot more talent than this movie.<br /><br />What is suspiciously absent are good jokes. Actually, bad jokes are rather scarce too. It just isn't funny.<br /><br />3/10
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Negative
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This was an incredibly stupid movie. It was possibly the worst movie I've ever had the displeasure of sitting through. I cannot fathom how it ranks a rating of 5 or 6.............
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Negative
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I found this a good movie to pass your time, but not by any chance of any historical value. The portrayal of Cleopatra reminded me a cheap soap opera.<br /><br />The twist of the facts is... funny! She gave birth while feeding her people!?!? O please... A pregnant Queen of Egypt (especially this one) would not bother to go from one room to the other for that reason! They tried to make her appear a saint for God's sake! And the way they tried to justify her murdering her own sister... beyond description.<br /><br />Cleopatra was the greatest politician of her time. Her decisions were based anything but her feelings and morals. She did everything for only two reasons: Power and self-preservation! She was borne in a family where she had to straggle for survival, something she did very well. Anything that stood on her way was either murdered (her brothers and sister) or seduced (Ceasar and Mark Anthony).<br /><br />Unfortunately Octavian was too powerful to kill and too... gay to be seduced. So, he was her end...
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Negative
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Mild SPOILERS contained herein. I'm spoiling this film to save you the trouble of having to watch it. <br /><br />Jet Li's movies fall into one of two categories: Shaolin period movies and movies set in modern-day Hong Kong revolving around Triads or Triad like organizations. Each genre has its best and worst films. `Twin Warriors' is Jet Li's best Shaolin era flick while `The Evil Cult' is his worst. `Fist of Legend' while in the recent past is the best `modern era' Jet Li movie. `Black Mask' without a doubt is the worst.<br /><br />Jet Li plays a self-exiled mercenary who received an injection that gives him superhuman ability, but shortens his life span. In his `new life' in exile he plays a pacifist librarian. When his old mercenary squad goes on a rampage, Jet Li becomes a vigilante determined to stop them. He dons a very silly corrugated cardboard mask so as to conceal his identity from the police (and public) as a librarian, as well as to conceal his true identity to his ex-comrades in arms.<br /><br />The version I saw was dubbed, and horribly at that. Why does Jet Li capture and hold hostage his library co-worker if he's a pacifist? Is there a love story between them? Why does the police chief not care when he learns of the Black Mask's true identity? The plot is just plain BAD. Bad by way of the superhero cheesiness, bad in the sense that characters are never properly developed, bad in its character interactions, all topped off by a half-explained story I quickly lost interest in. <br /><br />The action and martial arts sequences are way over the top. Lots of blood, gore (severed body parts aplenty), explosions, and Matrix style superhuman martial arts fiascos are present in the film. Unfortunately this is the films best and only selling point. If you want to see Jet Li playing a vigilante superhero in a Mission Impossible style movie `Black Mask' delivers. For the rest of us Jet Li fans it is a true disappointment. This is one of those movies where Jet Li never gets to be Jet Li: he gets neither the chance to charm us with his charisma, nor a chance to impress us with his impressive yet realistic martial arts ability. <br /><br />Normally a Chinese knockoff of Ozzy Osbourne would be enough to engross me in a film, sadly `Black Mask' proved to be an exception to that rule. Indeed the antagonist of this movie, by the way he dresses, his long straight hair, and trademark round sunglasses looks like the modern and aged Ozzy Osbourne. However the villain isn't on-screen long enough to make the gimmick worthwhile. I am assuming the likeness to Ozzy was intentional; in addition to the villain's look, he also ran a satanic looking hideout. So much more could have been made from the Ozzy Osbourne villain gimmick! If only the writer, director, or ANYONE had bothered to give a background to and develop the character of the film's arch villain!<br /><br />`Black Mask' was the first Jet Li film released on video in the USA after Lethal Weapon 4, and I'm glad I stayed away from it until now. It may well have ruined my whole perception of Jet Li as a martial artist and actor. If you want to see Jet Li at his worst, rent `Black Mask' and `The Evil Cult' and make it a double feature or horror, both intentional and unintentional. Otherwise stick to moves that utilize the talents of Jet Li, and have plots that are semi-well thought out and plausible. 3/9 stars.
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Negative
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Henry, a veterinarian (Paul Rudd), and his bossy fiancé, Kate (Eva Longoria) are looking over the last minute arrangements for their reception. It is the morning of their wedding and Kate is in a frenzy, giving the caterers an earful about her demands for food presentation. But, horror of horrors, the "angel" ice sculpture, ordered by Kate, arrives without wings. In an ensuing fight with the sculptor, the heavy "ice" maiden falls on Kate and sends her to the hereafter. Now, one year later, Henry's sister arranges for a psychic to tell the young vet that Kate would have wanted him to starting dating other ladies and move forward. Yet, the lovely medium, Ashley (Lake Bell) becomes interested in Henry herself, much to the chagrin of her catering partner (Jason Biggs). More importantly, Kate returns from the other side to create havoc for Ashley, as she has no intentions of letting another woman get her hands on Henry. Can anything be done to return Kate into heaven for good? This is an abysmal romantic comedy, one of the worst this dedicated fan has ever seen. No, its not the cast, as they try gamely to make things work. Longoria is beautiful and funny as the overbearing fiancé and Bell has an offbeat style and humor that is likewise infectious. Biggs, a funny thespian, too, is totally wasted. As for Rudd, a very gifted performer (see Anchorman, Knocked Up, or Clueless, please) he tries hardest of all and, in truth, is the main reason to see this clunker. His charm, looks, and easy wit go a long way in making the film bearable. But, nothing can turn a mindless script and terrible direction into a winner, absolutely nothing. So, if you are a dyed-in-the-wool fan of romantic comedy, think long and hard before you fork over any money for this one. Even were free tickets to fall into your lap, be warned that this movie is a near-death experience for those who adore love-and-laugh cinema.
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Negative
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I just don't get some of the big premises of this episode - that Miranda is so remarkable, and that there's anything so ugly it would make you insane. Someone here made the remark that maybe it's the frequency of the light waves or something rather than it being ugliness. Miranda is just a jerk. The episode is slow, inconsistent and way too talky. I also don't quite understand why Kolos is an ambassador - why doesn't the Federation just leave the damn Medusans be? There's one part I do like, when Kolos is speaking through Spock about the loneliness of the human experience. Overall, I love TOS and even at its lamest, I'll always tune in. This episode though - mmm, I wouldn't purchase it except for a used copy under $3.
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Negative
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