YanivEidelstein

linas philips is probably not a person i'd like to spend more than an hour and a half with. as the director behind this film, as well as the main character, filming himself from arm's length as he walks down the side of the road, he comes across as a dual presence: as a timid hippie type on camera, who often gets mistaken for a girl by those around him, who shies away from a fight as soon as the prospect of one arises ("i totally respect you, dude") and can't even bring himself to free a trapped goat on his own; and as a somewhat megalomaniacal helmer, who conceives of this grand stunt as a way to imitate his hero and therefore gain validation and self worth. this latter side of his comes through when one day, his plan hits some kind of snag; his vitriolic outburst (directed at the camera) about his unseen collaborator reveals he's not just flowers and bunnies after all.

this film does end up fascinating in parts, not because but in spite of philips' presence. any film which spends a few months travelling America's roads is sure to come up with some fascinating characters - even if philips intercuts some of the most poignant stories with each other, which i found to be insulting to the speakers. ("let's mix up the recovering-murderer footage with the child-abuse-victim footage! there won't be a dry eye in the house!")

philips seems to be seeking validation at every turn, and some of his interviewees appear to be in the film for no purpose other than to praise him on camera.

i felt sorry for poor werner herzog, dragged like this into participating in a film he had no part in creating. his recorded message at the end, proclaiming philips' pilgrimage as some grand achievement, sounds like it was written by philips and read by herzog under duress.

probably worth watching - just not for the reasons the director/writer/editor/star intended.

a home movie made by some people in their backyards. nothing to recommend it. avoid at all costs (unless you're the director's cousin).

i wrote a two line review, but IMDb is making me stretch this to ten lines of text. problem is, this movie doesn't contain 10 lines worth of material! it does have a plot, about two broke homeys who decide to get involved in some kind of criminal activity. but what's the point of discussing the plot of a movie so amateurish, it looks like something somebody's kid brother directed? hope this is long enough, IMDb!!! if i save one person the agony of watching this, then i've done my job. :^) thank you, god bless, may the force be with you...

i just had to counter all the positive reviews.

first of all, this is not a movie you want to watch with your kids, unless an addict trying to pimp her 12 year old daughter for crack is something you need your kids to see.

you should also stay away if you have diabetes. this melodrama is as treacly as they come. i counted four kleenex moments in the first 30 minutes! and it keeps coming thick and hard, with christmas, people tearfully shouting their most intimate secrets at each other, the parent breaking down as the child is reading the heart-wrenching poem in front of the school, etc. thank goodness the obligatory tragic death at the end is instantaneous and doesn't involve a hospital bed scene.

the movie's critical of the crack addicted mom for being weak, but where's the criticism against silas, the drug dealer? there isn't any. how's this for a happy tv movie ending? niki ends up in a happy family with her new drug-dealing daddy. but it's ok, because he only sells, never uses. and he's the guy who ruined niki's mom! a slight dilemma there, perhaps? not as far as the filmmakers are concerned.

critics and the media are always obsessed with novelty. if it doesn't bring something new to the table, then the hell with it. with this attitude, films like "fear x" fall by the wayside, but i'd like to speak in its favor.

if you're going to copy someone, copy the best. this movie is told using a vocabulary pioneered by other directors, namely david lynch and particularly stanley kubrick. this leads many to dismiss it as unoriginal.

while it may not invent a cinematic language all its own, i think it certainly uses some existing techniques to great effect. the resonant emptiness and dread of the overlook hotel from "the shining" is adeptly echoed here in mall parking lots, empty houses and hotel rooms. lynch's knack for making everyday american trappings foreign and scary is taken for a spin, and even an inexplicable trip/voyage sequence a-la kubrick's "2001" turns up.

fantastic camerawork by kubrick veteran larry smith and amazing sound design by the master of ambient noise, brian eno, make for an unusually polished cinematic experience.

the story line is admittedly a bit weak for all the cinematic devices around it, but with a movie this enjoyable and consistently intriguing, who cares?

incredibly false and hollow. nothing remotely resembling a real emotion, or a recognizable human course of action. the whole movie, and particularly simone's success, is incredibly exaggerated, without the slightest nod to believability.

but even worse: the underlying theme that drives the film is that people are inferior life forms, incapable of thought and devoid of intellect, who automatically lap up everything thrown at them, no matter how slapdash, like a bunch of pavlovian dogs. are all people like this? of course not; not our central FILMMAKER. just everybody else around him.

niccol just screams out: "you ungodly morons! can't you see everything i'm doing is s***? i deserve nothing but derision! come on! i dare you to hate me!"

while he must have been expecting "simone" to succeed and prove his point, the fact that it has become one of the most notorious flops of recent years will hopefully make him reconsider before unleashing another hateful, self-obsessed nightmare upon us.

sometimes, a film can suffer greatly from just one drawback, even if everything else is top notch. unfortunately, this is the case here.

this film, based on iain banks' novel, is an impressive production, with excellent actors, breathtaking scottish settings, believable and very enjoyable character quirks, truly shocking murders, suspense and even some steamy sex.

however, "complicity" doesn't quite succeed, and i can only trace it back to one thing: it's much too compressed. i haven't read the original novel, but it's obvious a great deal of it made it to the screen; unfortunately, the film's 93 minute running time just doesn't suffice for this epic tale: cameron colley's journalistic investigation into several seemingly unrelated murders, egged on by a mysterious anonymous source, which causes him to clash with his disapproving bosses; his relationships with his old friends, and the many secrets they share; his affair with yvonne; the various grisly murders as seen by the killer; flashbacks to cameron's childhood and teenage years; and the psychologically jarring moments after cameron becomes the police's prime suspect.

of course, this film offers many funny, thrilling, surprising and shocking moments, but they're all a bit rushed. a longer format would have benefitted this film greatly. banks' exceedingly clever and profound story manages to come over very well, but the film is so densely packed that i'd recommend you take small breaks so as to take everything in; make a cup of coffee or something and come back, as you would to a good novel (of course you could go straight to the source, but me, i'd rather watch the movie.)

the fabulous bbc production of banks' "the crow road" shows the extent to which a longer format is more suitable to his multifaceted stories.

seeing this movie (just recently) for the first time has shaken my faith in the academy, the critics and filmgoers everywhere.

is this the film that won THE OSCAR for BEST FILM of 2001? come on, people! were you on something?

i found "a beautiful mind" to be so inept and irredeemably stupid, that had i attended a test screening, i'd have recommended the studio shelf the movie, let alone submit it for consideration.

"akiva goldsman writes a serious script". the very thought seemed like a joke. but after the oscars and the critical and popular success, i assumed i was just wrong about him; maybe he really was a real writer. maybe the man who brought us the god-awful "lost in space" and "batman returns" (which featured the legendarily witty salvo, "hi freeze, i'm batman") was just making a living, waiting for his masterpiece to be produced? but all hopes were dashed in the first two minutes. this material is aimed at 6 year olds!

how can people have serious debates over a movie where characters talk in nothing but expositions, literary quotes, lame jokes and regurgitated cliches? where mathematics, presumably a central theme, is shown as something incomprehensible that eggheads doodle? with a saturday morning cartoon villain/antagonist who taunts our hero about his failures, only to be mocked when he finally succeeds? where a govt. agent's briefing on soviet espionage consists of showing nash (and the audience) stock footage of a-bomb explosions, and nash's explanation of the meaning of a secret russian code meets the reply, "thanks for all your help mr. nash, so-and-so will show you out"?

in many ways, this movie is just as bad, if not worse, than any fictionalized biopic ever made in hollywood. would you believe you could still see, in the 21st century, a new movie where an actor in exaggerated old-age makeup accepts the nobel prize for economics with a speech about how the real meaning of life can be found "in the equations of love"?! give me a break!

one moment contained as good an unintentional laugh as any in goldsman's old turkeys. in the early stages, a man in the m.i.t. library gets a tribute from colleagues; each places his pen on the man's table. nash "asks" what this means and receives the explanation, along with us. when the obvious payoff to this scene arrives at a later stage, and nash receives the same tribute himself, the mushy string-music moment stretches on for a minute or two, and then nash actually says, almost directly into the camera: "how totally unexpected". how totally ridiculous!

dreamworks continues to be a studio that makes only 3 kinds of films: calculated, soulless, test-marketed attempts to make a big box office; calculated, soulless, test-marketed attempts to win oscars, and, thereafter, a big box office; and spielberg films. it's the only time i can think of that a movie studio only contributed to cultural decline, without a single contribution (and yes, i do include "american beauty" and "saving private ryan" in that statement. haven't seen "perdition" yet, but i'm sure it's still accurate.)

i hope nash's story will actually, one day, be made into a good movie, not a laughable ham-fest with rehashed sixth sense silliness.

"knafayim shvurot" (not "shvurut"!), the first dramatic feature from nir bergman, is a well made drama about a haifa family's attempts to deal with the death of the husband/father (from a bee sting!) and to try and get on with their lives.

the main focus is the relationship between mother orli zilbershatz-banai and teenage daughter maya meron, and these two fine actresses really shine. meron's beautiful, expressive eyes help her to create a hugely sympathetic central character. all the supporting actors, even the kids, put in really good performances.

even as the early parts of the film deal with characters' attempts to get on with their everyday lives, the director took great care to keep the film moving at a brisk pace. at any given moment, something interesting is happening on screen, so there isn't a dull moment.

on a personal note, it was fantastic to see haifa (my home town, and nir bergman's), which i always thought was very cinematic, as the backdrop for a story, and many city locations are used to great effect.

this movie is thoroughly enjoyable. it balances its dramatic and comedic elements with impressive skill. it's unpretentious yet sure of itself, and will have most viewers wiping a tear from their eye before the end.

i'd recommend "knafayim shvurot" to just about anyone.

i'm sorry to say this recent chilean film is all but unfit for human consumption.

it's the clichéd story of small time criminals around santiago's horse racing circuit. numbers runner leo, his old girlfriend gloria who returns to the neighborhood after years in miami, her brother pedro, and "el jefe", the mob boss.

as you may very well have guessed, leo and gloria rekindle their affair, while pedro hatches a plan to bilk "el jefe", which of course goes horribly... (yawn). el jefe starts resorting to extreme measures to get his money back, but at some point, his goals shift inexplicably, and he only cares about bedding leo's old/new girlfriend. that this should happen is presented as some kind of unthinkable tragedy, even though gloria was shown to give this guy a blow job in a teenage flashback!

even though this was the first chilean film i've ever seen, the plot felt as stale as last week's empanadas. but not only that; every single line uttered throughout the film was a regurgitated cliché as well. the characters were ill-defined and paper-thin. the direction was totally serious and devoid of humor, despite the threadbare plot. and another hallmark of the bad movie: the utterly meaningless title.

the only thing this movie could possibly offer is a glimpse of realistic chilean locations, vernacular and music.

sorry to be so harsh on the filmmakers, but this film was a big disappointment.

i was pleasantly surprised by this movie at a recent film festival screening. most of it is deadpan, jarmusch-like slice-of-life comedy, but moments of senseless violence pop up unexpectedly.

it's the story of a small-time hood who's sent by his well-connected uncle to join the buenos aires police, which is depicted as, pretty much, a small time crime family with uniforms.

the offbeat story is matched by the offbeat story-telling, which keeps you guessing every step of the way. the cinematography and music are also top notch, which contributes to the film's tangible, sweat-soaked atmosphere.

i'm not sure what it all adds up to, but an intelligent and well-made movie which never bores is no small feat.

some people on this messageboard seemed to enjoy this movie, though i can't imagine why.

it's hardly cinematic; it tells its story in a very heavy-handed fashion. i couldn't believe my eyes at the sight of the first scenes that had dialog; not only were the lines really corny, but throughout the scene, each of the two actors (james coburn and virginia madsen) got a close up while delivering his line! even for utterances as negligible as "okay"! i didn't think such disregard for storytelling technique is even possible anymore, but there it is.

the movie did get a little better as it went along, thankfully, and delivered various flashbacks detailing coburn's history (on film) and the gun's owners' (on video) to liven things up a little. but the movie doesn't know how to deliver any insight into american gun culture. coburn's voice-over is comprised of his embarassing letters to his dead daughter(!). finally, a surprise ending negates most of the movie and leaves you with close to nothing.

as for coburn's performance... you won't hear me say a bad word about him, but i just can't praise his performance in "american gun". i assume his oscar for "affliction" was well-deserved (i haven't seen the film), but i don't see any awards (or nominations) for this one.

the storytelling style can best be described as "naïve", and that's the kind of movie-goer you have to be to enjoy the movie.

(spoiler for those not up on their history)

"beat" tells the historically accurate story of the events leading up to the death of william s. burroughs' wife, joan, in the infamous "william tell" incident previously re-enacted in the film "naked lunch".

unfortunately, it seems the filmmakers thought that re-enacting the verifiable facts will tell their story for them. they devoted more care to the locations than to giving depth to the characters. the lines put in the mouths of burroughs, ginsberg et al are not well written, and consequently they simply do not convince as creative, original thinkers (even if some of them became full-fledged writers only years later).

it seems the writer-director has a genuine interest in his subjects, as the well-researched end titles show. i suppose it's also educational to catch a glimpse of the mexican locale where the events took place. but for more insight into the creative process, the aforementioned "naked lunch" is probably a better choice. (maybe they'd make a good double "bill"?)

this movie was an ordeal. well, the first 40 minutes anyway.

in these 40 minutes, there was a total of about 15 shots. apparently that is this director's trademark: shots where nothing at all happens, that last several minutes. after awhile came interviews with relatives of people who died while trying to cross the mexican-usa border, but any interest these might have aroused was killed off immediately afterwards, with a 4-minute shot of said border.

after awhile, i decided that if i want to see nothing happen, i may as well do it outside.

why would anyone want to make a movie as deliberately slow as this? if a documentary filmmaker wants to raise awareness of a certain cause, why does she try so hard to alienate her audience?

i wouldn't go near this film without the availability of a fast-forward button.

this film is based around a fascinating subject; the amish custom of allowing every boy or girl who turns sixteen to do anything he or she pleases, no holds barred. apparently, the amish believe it is wrong to baptise infants, and that they're supposed to choose the amish way as free-thinking adults.

the opening titles explaining this raised my expectations, as did the movie poster: an image of a girl in an amish bonnet, sitting in the back seat of a car, lighting a cigarette. it felt like a stolen moment; like an exciting departure from everything she's been taught. what would teens like this do, give free rein for the first time in their lives? what would it feel like to taste the things that were always off limits?

well according to this movie, amish teenagers are just as debauched as anyone in western society; they have no qualms about doing anything at all; nothing seems exciting or new to them. they're just relieved that their nuisance parents are out of the way so that they can finally get on with their partying, driving and drugging.

and how do the parents feel about allowing their children to turn their backs on every value they ever taught them? that would be a challenging concept to any parent, let alone one in a supposedly closed, puritanical society. well, we'll never know, as the amish refuse to be filmed or photographed.

stripped of all the interesting questions, this remains a slick docu-soap in the mtv "real world" tradition, with no insights to offer; just a peek into the lives of a few amish teens, who may or may not be examples of anything larger than themselves.

a moderately interesting drama about an american journalist who becomes involved with guerrillas in el-salvador in the early 80's. but this isn't an off-putting political polemic. instead, it focuses on the private drama of the main characters - lust, righteous fervor, betrayal. the story itself is nothing new, but the original direction and tight visuals and editing keep us interested throughout. najwa nimri is amazing, and we'll probably be seeing a lot of her.

a stale vanity production that should have stayed on the director/co-writer/producer/composer's shelf. this "comedy" doesn't have anything resembling a laugh in all of 90 minutes. the writing is dismal. the whole thing was apparently concocted as a vehicle for susan brooks, obviously a relative of the director (etc etc), who's sweet looking but a non-actress. gielgud hams it up ridiculously with an incoherent "american" accent, and i'm not sure ralph richardson's drunkenness was "simulated". i watched this film so you don't have to.

don't worry, no spoilers here.

okay, it's like this. i like david lynch. i think some of his films, like wild at heart, twin peaks (mostly season 1 and "fire walk with me"), blue velvet & the straight story are all great. and i enjoyed watching mulholland drive, with its twists & turns, eerines and metaphysical dread creeping around. but "one of the best films of the year"? someone must have been hitting the booze...

this film started as a tv series pilot, and that's exactly what it looks like. the first hour and a half are totally linear and "make sense" in the traditional sense of the term. after that, the actors and characters make a big switcheroo, and present a different take on the events we've just seen.

it's obvious this was lynch's way to wrap up the loose ends and unconnected characters, not by giving us a conventional conclusion, but by creating an intentional mishmash that could only come from the mind of lynch. it's impressive, technically, but the reasons behind it are obvious, which makes it hard to take seriously.

this can easily be compared to the twin peaks pilot. when he directed that, lynch was under obligation to deliver a version of the pilot that had an ending, so the producers would still have something to show if the series wasn't picked up. he produced a version where laura palmer's body is found, the characters are introduced, and then the killer is found, all within the space of an hour and a half. this version was released on tape in europe.

what we have here is very similar, except that instead of a formula ending, we get a berserk game of musical chairs, a bit like the stuff lynch did before in "lost highway".

if this were a pilot to an actual tv show, i'd gladly sit and watch it every week. but as a feature, it's just 2 hours of surreal, creepy fun, and nothing new if you've watched twin peaks and lost highway.

i agree with what everyone else has said in this forum, and felt i should add my recommendation.

this film is about identity and culture, pride and shame, belonging and being an outsider. i found it said so much to me, i had a hard time keeping my mind on it, as my brain kept trailing off with new thoughts about life.

see it, not because you have or haven't known deaf people; see it because you are human.

for a long time, i was apprehensive about watching this movie. i felt the outrageous notion of beautiful, well-to-do teenage girls committing suicide could lead to a exploitative, manipulative movie.

coppola successfully avoids this trap. what we're left with is the (presumably) central question from the novel: why did this happen? as the narration makes clear from the beginning, the question has never been fully answered, so the story is bound to frustrate.

the film is constantly heart-wrenching, even (or especially) when focusing on mundane things, as the knowledge of impending tragedy hangs over the proceedings. one theory could be that the girls simply refuse to play the "dating game", and to be treated badly by the boys. their aloofness could be akin to that of ed crane in "the man who wasn't there"; they feel like strangers in this world and feel a next life could only be better. but this is just my conjecture.

maybe it's best to view the suicides as surreal, as if this were a buñuel movie.

at any rate, one aspect of this story that is true to life: boys' inability to solve the mysteries of womanhood.

i'd have liked "the yards" to be a great film, but frustratingly, it falls short.

james gray's style is a blend of total opposites: harsh coldness, with static camera shots and silences, and melodramatic pathos, with lingering closeups and emotional music. at least in "the yards", the two don't comprise a compelling whole. it feels more like schizophrenia.

the plot feels both real and operatic; again, a potential for greatness. but gray's insistence on lingering on every detail and his use of closeups and flashbacks to "explain" the story made me feel spoon-fed. it is unnecessary, as the story of corruption in the n.y. transit system is really quite simple and easy to follow. he also overdoes it a bit in the emotion department.

harris savides' cinematography, howard shore's music and particularly kevin thompson's set design are notable, and gray himself delivers a few effective moments of shock action. sadly, he lets his film slip into overlength.

still worth watching i suppose, but hopefully, in the future, gray will produce something better.

as a big fan of allison anders' earlier films "gas, food lodging" and "mi vida loca", i was happy to see her go back to the same kind of personal story about the life struggles of vulnerable-yet-tough, everyday female heroines. this one is a bit more on the sad side though, as it deals with the destructive consequences that a gang-rape has on the life of a florida rock vocalist.

if you've seen any of the other films by allison anders, you know she has a heart as big as all outdoors, and she knows how to pack a lot of emotion into her storytelling. this is also the case here, and aided tremendously by the amazing central performance from kim dickens. never having seen her act before, and seeing as anders has been known to cast musicians in her films, i thought she must be a real rocker from some band, making her acting debut. her performance is just so natural and convincing.

sherry's story is real and sad. it seems pretty realistic, and i'm sure people who've gone through something similar in their lives would benefit from this film.

i'd really hate to nitpick, but the film falls short of perfection. as is often the case when filmmakers deal with subjects of great personal importance to themselves, anders' film is overlong, and would benefit from a few judicious cuts.

but never mind; this film has heart, and that's what counts. you might even have a good cry.

pretty bad.

no use describing the plot of this wannabe spy thriller; it makes no sense at all. watching it is like staring into a blank wall.

the script to this movie is so bad, some of it felt like an airplane-type (or fatal instinct-type) spoof, some felt like bad tv, some just made my jaw drop. and a lot of it was very boring, too.

the only positive thing i can say is that budapest, hungary (where this movie was filmed in its entirety, even though it takes place in about 8 different countries) is beautiful.

i was paid to watch this movie, and unless you are too, steer clear.

i probably put more thought into this review than the writers did in their entire script.

In a country where any halfway decent local movies can be counted on the fingers of one hand, this comedy is definitely one to watch; in my opinion, one of the funniest, most clever movies ever. Ephraim Kishon, one of Israel's (and Europe's) most popular writers, wrote this movie (originally as a sketch) when the noise from construction work in the street below got on his nerves. Ever the self-centered type, he asked himself whether the construction workers were really there for a reason, or just a bunch of freaks whose only perpose in life is to disturb his sleep.

This simple idea eventually led to a hilarious satire of administration gone berserk. Bomba Tzur plays Blaumilch, a madman who's obsessed with digging. He escapes from an asylum early one morning, steals a pneumatic drill and starts digging up one of Tel-Aviv's busiest streets! Within hours, downtown Tel Aviv is reduced to a gigantic traffic jam, the local residents go insane, and Mr. Blaumilch is having the time of his life. But when the officials of the Tel Aviv municipality get wind of this, no one (including the runty mayor) knows who to give credit for this unexpected project; nearsighted bureaucrats secretly blame each other for it. In the confusion, nobody thinks to check what started the whole thing, except our hero Ziegler, which obviously nobody believes, even when he eventually discovers the truth. Eventually, city hall sends in reinforcements (bulldozers and heavy machinery) and the dig becomes a monstrous excavation, which can only lead to disaster. Or perhaps not... This movie is terrific. Very well directed, shot, scored, cast and acted, by a who's who of Israel's best comic actors of the time. Director Kishon throws in some very clever set-pieces. Excellent 60's atmosphere, too. A winner. Not to be missed.