Wolf Man

I remember seeing the NC-17 rating on Henry & June and thinking,'Yes, this must be interesting.' Why? Just because of the rating? By the fact that Kaufman pushes the envelope into developing a new rating to accomodate the film? Man, was that conjecture way off. The movie wasn't ground breaking, it seemed like 5th graders snickering at all the sexual content they could trick the censors into thinking was sensual period drama. Quills is worse. The characters are wooden, the writing is terrible, and the irony is so heavy handed and obvious as to invoke down right disgust. Again Kaufman has tugged on the proverbial wool in glorifying his overwrought, rediculously self-conscious dreck. Michael Caine was perhaps the worst cast actor of the year in that role and the ending reaked of Screenwriting 101 pretention.

Whenever I hear Spielberg say, "I wish Stanley could have directed this," an alarm goes off, "ME TOO!" Bottom line...Spielberg sucks, Kubrick rules. Always. [What was with the end? Perhaps it should have been retitled "M.O.M. Manipulative Overbearing Mucked-up ending"? I was so nauseated I almost lost it in into the popcorn of the woman in front of me. Or was that Saving Private Ryan? Same effect.]

This film was pure pain. Sitting in the theater for x-amount of minutes, I was wondering when the film was going to start. All the setups were in place; typical love story, characters have to overcome their short-givings, villain has to emerge, but none of it ever initiated. By the time these things happened, I was already bored stiff and the devices were completely ineffective. In scenes that required immense tension and buildup, it felt like necessary frames were cut. Kid's stuff does not have to be this way. Children's films can be as riveting and engaging as adult ones. The excuse, "hey , its for kids," is bull. I'll take "Sword in the Stone" any day. This was terrible. I'm getting the feeling that Disney will put out anything these days. And as for the kids, the 10-year I saw this with will agree...pure trash.

This flick just wasn't very good. The fact that we are immersed in the bone crunching and the jarring qualities of a contact sport is played out by the jarring camera work do not succeed in covering up the fact that this movie is not constructed very well. It just doesn't cut it on the technical end. Numerous continuity problems were so glaring on the screen that I wondered if the editors had gone on strike half way through production.

The writing is just as poor...No, I retract that; it was worse. An example? In the end, we get to see the owner contemplating on these events that changed her. Well, the writing is so thin that this character doesn't even show enough dynamism to portray a convincing change. And Pacino is no football coach. Not that his performance isn't the only saving grace in this trash, its just that he's not well cast. I have nothing against a football film portraying the intensity and meanness of its characters or the ruthlessness of the management, but this over-the-top picture is far too gratuitous in all aspects. Not just in violence factor, but as a whole. Half the film seems unnecessary. The message gets completely lost and the actors cease speaking like they believe in what they are saying. At points, the audience can find better dialogue in a middle school musical. The whole effort could have lasted 80 minutes, caused less grief, and I could have done something productive with that extra hour-and-a-half... Like sleep..oh wait, thats what I ended up doing the first time I tried to watch this c**p, anyway. Well, other than keeping myself amused by making fun of it...5/10 or C+ (thats generous)