http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669/usercomments-551

First of all, the movie starts with the caption "Was nominated for a Palme D'Or". If pretentious European critics loved it, then that should be warning enough.

In fact, the caption should say: "WARNING: This movie was in the running for a major European award. You HAVE been warned".

I have rarely been this BORED watching a movie – actually, watching ANYTHING. The first half – which is more than a full hour – is particularly dull. A bunch of uninteresting characters, Clark Gable being the most uninteresting of them all, and dialog that is so irrelevant, so pointless, and so BORING.

To make things worse, everything is set inside, so the movie tends to get a little claustrophobic as well. When we are given the occasional glimpse of the sky it becomes symbolic: symbolic of the viewer's cry for FREEDOM, "Get me out of this closed-up, dull movie!!!" It almost felt like watching "Cube" – minus the interesting plot.

The entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212712/usercomments-187

From the word "go" this film had "Rosemary's Baby" written all over it. Not only is "Blessed" utterly predictable but it's also amazingly dull and drawn-out. The wafer-thin plot could have easily been told in under 30 minutes. There are so many irrelevant scenes, especially the ones showing how much Graham and her hubby love each other, you'll find yourself very restless and very soon. There is no tension at all. We know she's carrying the anti-Christ. I mean, what else could it be? Mickey Mouse? Roseanne? A pair of underwear? The fact that they're twins – and female - is hardly a huge enough leap in originality (that would have been necessary) to at least semi-save this stinker from total doom.

And there are cast problems, too. Obviously Hemmings died during the making so his voice was dubbed – and dubbed very badly. The guy playing Graham's husband is bland and a bad actor; check out the scene in which the two have a fight while he tries to write: there is some truly unconvincing acting on his part. However, it's Andy Serkis and his laughable imitation of an Italian priest that gets "top" honours. Serkis must have been thinking he was still playing Gollum because his over-acting is inane.

Overlong drama that isn't capable of making any real point. So she became an actress - so what? She learned to love - big deal. There is a certain eccentricity among the characters and in the dialog and situations, but the kind which is bad for the movie, causing it to often seem absurd.

Summer Phoenix, playing the lead, talks and behaves like a semi-retarded person, so there is no choice but to watch the movie as about a retarded girl that makes it in the world of theater - which was clearly not the intended point. We are told early on (in that "Barry Lyndon"-like narration) that she learned to hide her emotions, which certainly explains her autistic stone-face, but the movie suffers for it. She basically walks around like a zombie, and her success as an actress isn't quite credible given her lack of emotions (the again, she DID get this role, didn't she?). Occasionally, the movie had that dull, sleepy feel of a Dogma 95 movie. Is it one? I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Summer Phoenix is sister of Joaquin Phoenix and the late River Phoenix. Nepotism rarely works.

Cheap-looking movie with obvious roots in TV. Some of the special-effects are so cheesy that they wouldn't be good enough for the 60s "Star Trek". The insect-like aliens are unconvincing, though the cast of this movie would beg to differ; upon the aliens' discovery everyone made a grimace of disgust, whereas - I felt - they should have laughed at those bad cardboard Martians. Even worse is the b&w "recording" of the Martians, in which they look like bad grasshopper-puppets wandering around aimlessly. Those special-effects would have been acceptable in the 50s, but f'rcrissakes, this movie was made in the same year as "2001" (but perhaps I'm being unfair with that comparison). The ship doesn't look bad, though.

The entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062168/usercomments-79

By far Hartley's worst film.

This is crap. To make the same, boring old ("human condition") point about people being in the same situations regardless of nationality, race, or sexual preference is bad enough. But does it have to be made through tiresome repetitiveness of the same dialogue, over and over? This is a very boring and lifeless film. It's also visually one of the worst I've seen in a while; did I read in the credits that someone was in charge of cinematography? Maybe it was the film's gaffer.

The first story is okay, the German one is utterly horrible, and the Japanese one sleep-inducing. This looks like a very rushed and messy endeavor, and the acting is at times atrocious - especially in the German segment (The Germans, apart from some notable exceptions, have pretty weak actors).

If you want some high-quality indie comedy(or)drama from Hartley, check out "Amateur", "Henry Fool", or "The Unbelievable Truth" – all very funny, eccentric movies.

These Black Sheep are BS.

When Monty Python did their little low-budget "flying sheep" sketch, it was so much funnier than all the gags in BS put together. There are hundreds of horror films with killer rats, killer bats, killers this and killers that. I suppose it's alright to give New Zealenders and their fluffy animals a chance, as well. A lack of originality in the premise isn't the problem. The problem is it simply isn't funny. There are perhaps one or two grin-worthy moments, but that's about it. There is the usual NZ frenzied acting and gore. It seems Peter Jackson's NZ worshipers realize that "if you can't rip off LOTR, for lack of a budget, why not try with a splatter comedy like 'Bad Taste'", or as NZ-ers would say: "Bad Teeste". This would seem a wise choice in light of the fact that splatter comedies are "in" right now. Alas, nearly all of them are unfunny and mediocre. Mixing humour with gore requires a clever script and a fitting direction. Even though the movie mocks New Age esoteric save-the-world morons to some extent, it also includes a pro-Green message, which is the ultimate stupidity. A comedy splatter film preaching to us? What's next? Drew Barrymore writing a book about cosmology?

This non-event of a film is about a real-life murdered female poet whose work gets appreciated/discovered only after her husband hacks her into bits. That's a cliché already. (And anyway: screw poetry.) But there aren't too many other clichés because something has to happen in a movie in order for it to even have clichés. It's slow-moving and dull. Miranda Richardson shows her breasts (well, one breast) in an early scene and that remains the only highlight. Why she wasted her time and talent on this forgettable crap, only she knows (it couldn't have been the money, given this budget). The big revelation at the end is that Swann's neighbour wrote parts of the poetry; now how's that for a mind-blowing revelation?! Audiences, hold on to your seats!

A woman is forced to go to re-hab for drug and alcohol addiction, where she falls in love with Aragorn.

Oh Lord, thou hast givest us seldom a more boring & utterly pointless film than this. 100% dreary, a dull affair, real torture to sit through. Bullock's movies are always total crap, but this one really takes the cake (and shoves it down the viewer's throat). The story is one big fat dull cliché, with Bullock ridiculously miscast and very unconvincing as a free spirit and recovering junkie/alcoholic. At the beginning I thought the film would be a comedy, but I was stunned when I realized that this was an actual attempt at a "socially relevant" drama. TV drama-of-the-week moron-fodder, actually...

The film really did feel like 28 days. A small tip to those who want to watch this in spite of all warnings: watch it over a period of 28 days, 3-4 minutes a day, and you might just survive it without breaking something or falling into a permanent coma. Hollywood at its 90s worst.

Best around the middle, when most characters get horny and go after someone they haven't had before. It is around this point that we get to see Susan Sarandon's majestic breasts (even if through a veil). Strangely enough, Beverly D'Angelo who isn't shy about nudity doesn't show any at all, while Aida Turturro – of all people – does. On the other end of the spectrum, the less said about Walken playing a homosexual the better. The film itself has little plot; the dialogs from the theater play and the "normal" dialogs cross over often and that's not the sort of thing I'd consider a good idea. Life in the theater: who cares? Occasionally the dialog has something going for it, but the film drags far too often.

Visually impressive - though unfortunately over reliant on red - musical that seems to drift in a Netherworld between very broad comedy and romantic drama. Too long, and quite full of dull dialogues with most supporting characters overacting their asses off. The musical numbers are mostly forgettable, occasionally even awful - like the rape of "Roxanne", the idiotic version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the dried up and never-has-been-good, tedious "Madame Chocolat" (or whatever the hell it's called), and the utterly hopeless choice of one or two Madonna(!) songs. Talk about bad taste.

Another musical problem is Nicole Kidman's voice, which is clearly quite inferior to McGregor's surprisingly solid voice; she doesn't so much sing as she whispers - a true mark of someone with a weak voice.

The "whisper cop-out" is often used by women who try to disguise the fact that their voice doesn't measure up. This never becomes more obvious than when the two leads sing together; she simply pales by comparison.

Also, the two have been mismatched: 1) she is older than him, 2) he is charismatic, she isn't, and 3) most importantly, she is a head taller. McGregor is solid, but he can't help this movie much. And how's that last "message" we get at the very end of the end-credits: "truth", "beauty", and "above all... love". How profound and how friggin' touching'. Come on everybody, let's all sing bad 80s/90s hits (or 80s/90s hits covered badly) and pull out our handkerchiefs and whimper a lot. Still, it could be worse: it could be "Chicago".

Plenty of "Normal Activity" for a (home-)movie claiming to offer the paranormal.

People continually going upstairs downstairs is rather normal activity. People sleeping between midnight and morning I hear is quite common behavior too. Not to mention the exciting arguments over whether the movie's main camera should be recording the trivial proceedings or not. But I guess the movie's title must be referring to the inexplicable hence supernatural effect the movie had of people screaming in theaters as they watched it, their Neanderthal jaws dropping in horror. Only black magic can account for this turkey raking in as much dough as it did.

Just because a dozen or so little ol' ladies shrieked in horror while watching PA (they were probably given free tickets by the cunning producers) and then ran out of the theater gasping for air, doesn't mean that the rest of the audience were shaking in terror too. I refuse to believe all those idiotic hype-reports of people fainting while watching this 35-cent crap-o-rama. Or are today's audiences truly that stupid? Have years of viewing Nicholas Cage action flicks and Meryl Streep dramas so exhausted/drained the viewers's collective brains?

The entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179904/usercomments-916

Jimmy Stewart sees a giant rabbit, and it's just HILARIOUS.

Without an iota of doubt one of the worst comedies ever made, held high in the cinematic sky - for unfathomable reasons - by all the critics. There is also no doubt about another thing: if a movie were made today with this idiotic/sophomoric script, and with this kind of bad acting, for sure it would be dismissed by every critic as the unfunny crap that it is. The humour is juvenile, obvious, and predictable, the jokes are pathetic, and the characterizations have less credibility than a 5-cent Mickey Mouse comic. The movie seems to plow through with difficulty; bad plot-devices are constantly used to make the plot go one way or another. This is forgivable when a comedy is funny, but when it's this bad, it just stinks. Half-way through the movie I lost all interest in the proceedings. I could literally go through the whole movie, scene be scene, and explain in detail why the scenes or the "gags" bomb (we're talking hydrogen bombs here), but doing that with an unfunny comedy is tiresome and depressing...

The entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/usercomments-137

Yet another modernistic Shakespeare adaptation.

Is this a major piece of pretentious garbage or what? First of all, a Shakespeare play set in the modern world: how original!!! It was original when "Richard III" (with McKellen) was done a few years back. But it was already unoriginal when Luhrman copied this idea and filmed his utterly idiotic version of "Romeo & Juliet", with everyone armed with machine guns, for what is probably one of the worst movies ever made. It was not original when "Titus" was made, even if in "Titus" they sort of played back-and-forth with the past and present. But at least "Titus" was okay - and it's never been filmed before, as far as I know.

But "Hamlet"...?? First of all, there have been so many versions of this play, especially in recent years, that there is no excuse or reason for anyone to film another version, and I don't care how much new energy they want to inject into it, or try a new approach to the whole thing, bla bla bla. Isn't it bad enough that Branagh made a 4-hour version of it?! When that piece of crap came out I thought that no one could ever "top" that in sheer self-indulgence.

Entire review:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171359/usercomments-143

The Brits have long ago lost their ability to make James Bond interesting, having screwed up that franchise with political correctness and wimpy (Brosnan) and ugly (Craig) Bonds, so what gave them the idea that a teen Bond would be any different? In fact, it is even worse.

This movie is awful on every level: dull story, absurd premise, the movie lacks spirit, uninteresting casting, weak acting, unfunny "humour", forgettable dialogue, etc. Watching a skinny blond 15 year-old beat up scores of adults may work in a computer game, but on the big screen it may impress only the very young viewers.

Oh, this is not based on a computer game? A book? Well, well, that certainly is a digression from the modern trends, as far as sources for movie material go. Movies used to be based on good novels once (at least occasionally), but nowadays it is pulp writers like Rowling and the guy who wrote this crap who serve as inspiration to make money. Sad.

There are no words to describe just how low-budget this boring piece of garbage really is. In fact, just by renting this tape I have probably spent more money than the film's producers on the film itself. (I, and the other ten people who saw this film made quite a good profit for the producer, who happens to be Raimi, allegedly; if that is true, why the hell is he wasting time with this kind of crap? A favour for a (talentless) friend?) This lower-than-low-budget snooze-fest was financed by somebody's failed garage sale. Or was a cast member's kid-brother's piggy-bank raided in the middle of the night? Who knows. And it's not just the fact that the "film" is to the most part incredibly dull: it's supposed to be like an indirect "homage" to Romero's zombie trilogy and other horror-movie greats; hence the rather trite "idea" of naming the idiot characters after real-life directors, actors, or horror-film characters. Ha-ha. Hilarious. Don't you just love movies with film-buff "in-jokes" and references? So very original and interesting…

Entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094962/usercomments-42

Bergman's most cheerful work is a powerful exercise in redness.

If you think the previous Bergmans were drenched in depression and hatred of life, you will be surprised by the cheerful nature of this very red film.

This wonderfully red movie is about a woman who is dying (surprisingly, not from a suicide attempt) and her sisters and their husbands. There is wretchedness, there is depression, there is crying and whispering (here the movie delivers on its promise), there is a woman masturbating(?) with a piece of broken glass (very, very ARTISTIC scene), there is a fat maid day-dreaming of zombie-like resurrection, and last but not least - yes – there is a suicide attempt, as well.

Only one suicide attempt? Well, yes. You see, Ingmar was in one of his better moods when he wrote the script for this reddish film. Apart from the wounded stomach of the self-stabber, the mental agony pervading the minds of every character, the cut-up vagina (that broken-glass business), and the physical pain of the dying woman - there isn't much misery in "Cries & Whispers". It is an uplifting film about the human spirit. Oh, yes: and the "human condition". Gotta use that term. Always impresses the reader. Yes, the "human condition". Deep stuff. Whenever a drama is made by a European director – and it happens to be about the "human condition" – you just KNOW it HAS to be good. Because, after all, we are all human, and we all have conditions. Right? Is that how it works? Sorry, I'm not "deep" and "intelligent" enough to understand the full extent of the complexity that is to be found in a Bergman drama. Will someone explain "human condition" to me? I am so confused by these profound ideas…

The entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/usercomments-69

The director/writer (no doubt another nepotist creature) tried to cram as many ideas as he could into a 100-minute movie, and the results are disastrous. He tried to combine screw-ball comedy with witty indie-style philosophical semantics-type humour. The result is a frantic mess. The movie is quick, there is constantly something happening, but nothing funny. The direction is sloppy, the story disjointed, and there is no build-up to the miserable finale. The fact that this director/writer saw it necessary to throw in a whole bunch of liberal propaganda bull***t as well, only hurts the movie further. His script preaches - one-sided of course, with tremendous bias as usual - about the environment, about pollution, about Sudan being the way it is because America supports dictators, bla bla bla. Just a bunch of dull nonsense that was obviously very close to this director's heart and tiny brain.

It's bad enough that Shania Twain's name keeps getting mentioned, but the movie even had to show her in flesh. It was vomit time...

Anyone who finds themselves impressed by the verbal goings-on in this sad little comedy is probably a moron who thinks that all of that stuff is so new and fresh.

The whole comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356721/usercomments-346

"Nostalghia" is an overly pretentious non-story that is far too self-indulgent even for a European director. If you make movies just for your own "artistic" pleasure then why even bother releasing them? This two-hour snooze-fest could have been EASILY cut down to half that length - and it would still not be fascinating. Watching the main character walk around endlessly without saying or doing anything is just GARBAGE film-making. Lazy, and made/written by someone who overestimated himself a tad.

The positive side to this movie - apart from the fact that it made me fall asleep - are some visually stunning scenes. Especially the long shots of water, which are pleasant, if a little sleep-inducing because they may be TOO pleasant. Tarkovsky seemed to have some kind of an almost-fetish for "aqua", because he filmed it in all its visual and audio glory in nearly ever movie he made.

My advice to those who consider this a masterpiece is to stop lying to yourselves about your own intelligence, hence to quit being in denial about how you TRULY, honestly, perceive certain movies. Writing about a movie such as this being a "stroke of genius" is just one of many ways some people deal with an inferiority complex...

The entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086022/usercomments-37

An American businessman and an English one (played by the stunningly handsome Cox himself) go on a journey through Liverpool, looking for food. But, wait! They end up traveling half the globe, not noticing that they've been in Holland, Japan, China, etc. In the end they end up on the set of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti Westerns, where they meet the third businessmen. The three of them are symbolically represented by the Three Kings, which the "hand of God" then removes in the last scene. Meaning… what?... That Cox is a shoddy director? Whatever.

I am so tired of these talentless wannabe "film-makers" trying desperately to devise and present new ways to be "original" about how they deliver their unoriginal same old "messages" about humanity, the problems of the modern man, what have you. It takes ability and talent to do that, and Alex Cox lacks both in abundance.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167454/usercomments-7

If you like endless monologues, you've found your movie.

Fans of "Police Academy 6", stay away. This is far too intelligent for you. Fans of Kubrick's films, stay away. This is not intelligent enough for you. Fans of TV soap operas, you should give this one a try.

This time, Bergman's script is nothing less than exhilarating. The story is absolutely amazing.

Ingrid visits her daughter Liv. They talk. Liv's cripple sister, Lena, appears. Ingrid talks to Lena. Ingrid talks to herself. Liv talks to her husband. They talk to Ingrid. Liv plays the piano. Ingrid plays the piano. Liv and Ingrid talk. And they talk. Flashbacks. After a while they talk more. Flashbacks. And guess what? They talk again. And again. Flashbacks. Lena screams. Liv narrates, thinking about suicide. Ingrid on a train, happy to finally leave the movie. Liv narrates more. Guess how the movie ends? Liv talks. To the camera, this time. She has bored Ingrid so much that the cameraman was the only person left to talk to at the end.

If your idea of fun is to watch a mother and a daughter "confront their inner demons and their troubled past" (as some critics would probably put it), then you'll enjoy this piece of crap. A soap opera, nothing more, but with better dialog. Except that this time around the acting is worse than usual. Liv is unconvincing; screaming and tamper-tantrums do not necessarily good acting make.

Entire comment:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077711/usercomments-33

The movie's title is ominous. You'd been warned by the director himself.

Maltin the Leonard calls this pathetically pretentious comedy "fiendishly funny", which is in itself the best confirmation and most dire warning one can hope to get that a movie sucks. When Leonard gives a film his unholy blessing, then that sort of becomes "a seal of disapproval". If he says it's black then it must be white: that nerdy critic is the perfect anti-litmus test.

Based on a novel by Marxist Terry Southern (who gave us lovely cinematic garbage such as "Easy Rider", "Barbarella", and Kubrick's vastly overrated and unfunny "Dr.Strangelove"), this absurdist experimental comedy makes the rather trite point that people are bribable, greedy, obsessed with money, la-di-da... What an amazing discovery Terry had made there: "Hey, I just figured out that people lust after money! I must write a novel in which I can hammer that point home, over and over, through a series of oh-so symbolic vignettes!" Money rules the world! Eureka! What a shock...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064622/usercomments-73

Oh, yes, yes, yes, I too remember those long-lost times, especially that dream-like, allegorical day when the coffin opened, and there I was - tuh-duh! - rising up out of it, like a wide-eyed hungry zombie, to meet my fellow 8 year-old inmates. The coffin had holes, unlike Iris's, so I was able not only to breathe comfortably but also eat while being transported by my kind kidnappers. (Some of the holes were big enough to shove chunks of food through, which I devoured gratefully, and there was also "a drinking hole", with a straw permanently attached to it, leading to a rather wonderful, seemingly inexhaustible supply of red Hawaiian Punch.) It was a beautiful and innocent time... We walked through the woods, very innocently, trained ballet for hours on end while being told we were "just maggots and not butterflies yet", though some of us occasionally got innocently drowned in the rigged boat while trying to escape the Ballet Concentration Camp. Did I mention it was an innocent time?

They are right: this movie is thought-provoking. It provoked many thoughts of pressing the fast-forward button.

Lucile Hadzihalilovic offers us a typical Euro-trash art-crowd-pleasing free-for-any-interpretation nonsense right out of the School of Lazy Film-Makers' Meaningless Tripe. Its pace is sluggish even for an overly pretentious Continental govno.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375233/usercomments-50

Soderbergh hates cinema and movie-goers. This movie conclusively proves it.

People eating s*** may amuse some thrill-seeking loons, not me.

I'd prefer to see a porn film with this name.

BC is precisely what the dumbed-down masses deserve. I have no idea what the original is like, but it can only be better than this incredibly uninvolving and dull garbage.

A bunch of bickering females, realizing they're in danger, refuse to leave the house - even though it's a house in which mass-murder was committed - and instead decide to hang around so that they can be butchered one-by-one. (It's the old Eddie Murphy "if the house is haunted, get the *beep* out!" line.) Everything that occurs in this typical slasher film, the worst of all horror genres, is cretinous and no amount of "spicing it up" with cannibalism and incest can change that.

The supposedly major twist at the end is that the killer's sister/daughter is in the house, too; only a moron could not see that coming. Even worse, Agnes is played by a man, and rather large man. I have no idea what they were thinking. Agnes was shown to be an ugly girl at 12, but not MANLY. There is no explanation as to when or why this creature decided to have sex-change surgery, accompanied with massive, almost Mickeyrourkian (or Cheresque) facial surgery.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454082/usercomments-253

The pretentious title alone will impress many among the clueless...

"Requiem For a Turd".

I can't shake off the nasty feeling that this is yet another thinly disguised attack at modern America (hence Capitalism), presenting it in a hysterically negative light, exaggerating every step of the way with absurdly immoral doctors, cops, and just about everyone else. A bleak mood is all well and fine, but let's not get carried away...

In fact, I checked out Hubert Selby's biography - and "surprise": yet another anti-American American. "Last Exit To Brooklyn" is also manic, laughable and designed to be controversial rather than intelligent. The fact that this talentless writer has been championed by people such as Allen Ginsberg and Henry Rollins really says it all... Henry Rollins has a brain the size of a peanut.

As if it weren't bad enough that Aronofsky thought that no-one else had covered drug use in movies before - what with same-old-same-old clichés of junkies stealing, dealing, and drooling - but the movie actually uses drug addiction as a cover to criticize the medical profession and law enforcement in a way in which an ignorant, radicalized, and endlessly naive 17 year-old hippie normally would. America - as seen through the eyes of someone who is so very disillusioned with his country. That moves me to tears. Really touching. Please hand me a handkerchief, the tears are threatening to drown me! Maybe the writers should move to Zambia, Colombia, or Mongolia and see how they like it there... See what a cruel life is really all about, the spoiled whining ninnies...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180093/usercomments-1666

You could laugh your butt off watching this, or yawn like a walrus. I guess that depends on your mood or character.

Either way, it stinks.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032599/usercomments-101