fliphop

this is the best movie, about people, this year, besides eastwood and damon's movie. it is at-least as good as 'morning glory', which i also loved to tears.

the characters are wonderful. i actually wound up caring about the rich snob girl; this movie achieved the impossible.

the movie was also funny... people in the theatre were cracking up. i admit some of them went over my head. some of them are so subtle, its beautiful. there is a joke about subtitles, blink and you will miss it, but people in the audience loved at my theatre it.

this is what independent films used to be like... creative, funny, touching, sad, brilliant.

don't be fooled by the ratings on IMDb or tomatoes. the people who made this film are incredibly talented and the heart and soul of their effort drips out of this movie.

I still believe the best movie on the crisis is 'The Other Guys'. But this is a close second.

There are a few minor flaws though.

The most glaring is the softpedal of Barney Frank, who had pushed Fannie and Freddie to go into subprime, and was mysteriously un-inquisitive of Countrywide during the crisis.

An other issue is the scenes with hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. He has great insight in the film, but his major contribution during the crisis was his outspoken criticism against MBIA, an insurance company that he was also shorting. IE when MBIA faltered (due to CDOs it 'insured'), Ackman made lots of money. This is told by Christine S Richard in the book Confidence Game. As in 'The Big Short' by Michael Lewis, even the 'whistleblowers' themselves had conflicts of interest. None of this is anywhere in the film.

Another problem is that the film never distinguishes between Synthetic CDOs and 'Cash' CDOs. The Synthetics were basically a form of gambling, as they were not made of any real asset, just credit default swaps. It's sort of a weird subject, but it is kind of important, because without the Synthetics, the market (thus the problem) would have been much much smaller.

The laudatory tone towards Europe is a little difficult to understand, since Europe was up to it's ears in CDOs. And one 'wall street' firm up to its armpits in subprime, Deutsche Bank, is not even American. Europe had housing bubbles and banking bailouts and other problems as well coming to roost in 2010.

The positive view of the Chinese banks is also odd, since China was in CDOs and had a bank that almost merged with Bear Stearns. China's financial industry is about as pure and well regulated as their milk or toy paint industry.

Also I laughed at the section about how in the US 'high tech sector' jobs were 'easy' to come by. Considering the place where I work uses software owned by a company in India and the number of underemployed computer people I know.

But the film also has a lot of stuff I haven't seen in the books on the crisis, most importantly the massive conflict of interest and corruption between academia, government, and business. Especially effective was how the interviewees on this subject didn't seem to 'get it'. The book EConned by Yves Smith describes the problems with the modern study of economics, but Mr Ferguson draws us some extremely specific lines between men who worked high in government, the conclusions found in their 'academic' writing, and the industry that pays them for their 'outside consulting'. This is the most devastating part of the film, to me.

And the film does fantastically with the short time it's given. I would give my eye's teeth to see the full interviews. Gillian Tett gets under a minute of screen time but she has written an entire book about how Credit Default Swaps were invented by a handful of traders at JP Morgan and how the idea was 'perverted'. (it's not really mentioned in her interview). The same could be said of many other authors interviewed.

A nice Hollywood ending might have been discussing how the Swedes dealt with their banks, but... its Charles Ferguson, don't expect a Hollywood ending.

i will tell you what happened at -my- theatre, full of young folks apparently on dates and so forth, packed to the gills, in flyover America.

people laughed. there were some very funny moments in this movie. i did not know there was a 'butter of the month club'. this is a line that could be found in any of the ben stiller, or Judd apatow, or will Ferrel, or Seinfeld or Larry David shows. and here, i find it just as funny.

Kate Hudson does a very good job of playing her role, and this whole 'overeating' thing is a perfect example... in the theatre i was in, it worked, the audience did, in fact, laugh out loud.

Anne Hathaway is a great movie star, because she can play the buddy thing... i mean to say that she is not trying to take over the movie, even though she could, and i loved that.

people will say she is 'wasting' herself playing these types of movies. well, maybe she should go shoot people or blow things up and make big bucks, but maybe she doesn't want to. the parts she is playing are very hard to do well, she brings so much to them. it is hard to play this ordinary life stuff.

the characters around the main are good as well. i especially liked the devious little assistant to Kate Hudson's character, he played that perfectly and it was written well, and got a good number of laughs for his antics. the crazy school colleague had several good lines, talking about "i do so much for you". very funny. and unusual. i liked seeing this type of psychology in a movie role because we all know people who act like that sometimes, but you don't see a lot of it in the movies.

why do people, then, hate this movie so much? well, i personally found the ending rather unsatisfying... it 'shocked' me out of my "suspension of disbelief"... i didn't see how things could be so 'resolved' after 10 years of courtship, to dump it all out in a few minutes. it seemed a little silly to me. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but the way it was written did not hit home with me, the way the rest of the movie did.

i can only surmise that people who hated it, found the entire thing to be what i found the last minute or two to be... a little bit too trite and neatly wrapped up.

but, i am willing to let all that slide... because at the core of the movie is a good story about relationships... which is what all movies are really, even Star Wars. OK, i don't know about Hostel because i didn't see it. but Im just saying, this movie might look superficial but it is not really.

i know they talk about dress designers and shoes and crap like that, but to some people, that stuff is the equivalent of the Rambo 'strapping on his weapons' scenes, or scenes in other movies where they go on and on about types of weaponry, or guns or techno babble on star trek episodes or whatever. or... sports. you all know the person who plays fantasy football and can go on for hours about it, well thats how these people are with weddings and everything that goes around weddings. but i think that is kind of the point..... the movie is not about weddings, its about the relationships between people.

anyways, if you are into stuff like 27 dresses, or that movie with the t-mobile lady and the dude from 'thank you for smoking', or nanny diaries, or other stuff like that... you will probably dig it, or at least parts of it. i would even go so far as to say fans of "meet the fockers" might find something in this film worthwhile.

now the other problem i had with the movie was envy, i envied these people with all their lifelong friendships and so forth and so on. but eventually it all breaks down and they find themselves just as lost as the rest of us... what can i say. i don't understand why people hate this movie so much, just like i don't understand why people hated the nanny diaries. oh well.

this movie has transformed history into a thriller. this in and of itself is somewhat of a work of genius. the camera shots and pacing of Mr singer have all the grip that i felt when watching his x-men....

and i got the same feeling of a human story... Mr singer does not condescend or preach..

the supporting actors are all first rate, absolutely top notch. i have no idea if they are historically accurate.. but the emotions that they chose to portray were entirely and wholly believable to me, as a viewer. namely, the uncertainty about the plot, the doubts, the hesitation, the pondering, and the fear. they were not instant cereal box heroes, many were worried about their own skin, and not pure bred idealists.

tom cruise, will of course be criticized... because of his acting, or because he is a scientologist. but i think his acting here is spot on. he is arrogant, brash, over confident, and a little annoying.. which is exactly what you need to be a coup assassin. let me just ask, who else could have played this role, in this movie, as well as Mr cruise? Mel Gibson? brad Pitt? George clooney? and make no mistake, its a Hollywood movie.. they needed a Hollywood star to make it...

as for Mr cruise' scientology... clearly the man is a professional and did not bring anything to the film set except his dedication to do a good job in this role. i don't like a lot of things the CoS does, then again, i don't like a lot of things that religions do... or atheists for that matter. so give the guy a break. its not like he eats babies (err.. right?)

my only quibble is with the ending. (ok, if it turns out there are horrible historical mistakes, id quibble with that too...but i have to give them as much a break as i would any history based thriller). i wish it would have been a Hollywood ending! yes, the hero dies, we all know its coming. but what about 'saving private Ryan' ending? that was a beautiful ending. what about an ending showing the German resistance memorial, in the modern day? i think it would have been nice to say that dying to stop Hitler, was not such a tragedy... the tragedy would have been if he had not tried to stop Hitler.

and there are some who say 'it was too late in the war... would have made no difference'... but there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, killed in the last 9 months of the European war. and for those who say, these men just wanted power, not to save Europe.... well, this movie clearly shows that angle... as i mentioned above. the actors are brilliant.

i must also praise the set people and photographers, costume and props departments. the scenes of soldiers dashing about various buildings, the plane rides, the wolfs lair... they all add very much to the drama and emotion of the film.. in the best tradition of Hollywood popcorn munching film. yes it might be unnecessary, but it is not unwelcome. i would dare to say, it rather drew me in and helped transport me.

anyways, if you are a neo Nazi, you will probably hate this film.. so go skip it. if you have no interest in politics or history, also skip it. if you want a lot of killing, explosions, and mindless action, skip it. if you are still reading this, after all i have said... then you might like it.

i was having a horrid day but this movie grabbed me, and i couldn't put it down until the end... and i had forgotten about my horrid day. and the ending... by the way... where is the sequel!!!

the budget is obviously extremely low... but ... look what they did with it! it reminds me of a play... they are basically working with a tent, a 'escape pod', a few guns, uniforms, camping gear, and a 'scanner' thing. that is it for props. Maybe this is even a good thing, forcing the acting and writing to have to step up and take their rightful place in film, as the centers of the work, instead of as afterthoughts used to have an excuse to make CGI fights (starwars).

The cgi is fine. It is not exactly 'seamless'... but imho it still works. why? because there isn't too much of it, and what there is, is not 'taking over' with an army of effects house people trying to cram everything they can into the shot. it prompts the imagination... it's some relatively simple stuff, with decent composition (especially the heavy freighter shot.. there is one long shot that must be at least ten seconds...that tracks the entire length of the ship... it must be a record for sci fi battle sequence film making in the past 10 years, to have an action sequence that lasts longer than 0.75 seconds), and some relation to the story. it might look old or not 'state of the art', but it doesn't look stupid and it doesn't take away from the story.

The acting is good, except the characters die too fast to get to know them.

Now, as for the plot.... mostly it is good... why? Because it doesn't try to explain itself. It just happens. It's called 'the planet', its a mystery, get it?? Nobody knows why there is a statue, and they don't find out either. The mysterious cult? The weird scientist with the tattoo? What do you expect to find out in less than 90 minutes? This isn't War and Peace. And, thank god, it's not star wars/trek either. No midichlorians, no 5 minutes of expository boring dialog that has no purpose in the story. The characters are stranded, and are only able to figure out a few basic things... it is not a star trek episode where they find out it's leonardo davinci or a child like space wanderer. It is mysterious, and i liked that. I don't know why, maybe I can identify with these guys more , since they don't know whats happening, and i don't either... they don't talk a lot of space gibberish or have magic boxes telling them what is happening.

Anyways. What can I say. This was well worth the dollar I payed at the 'red box' machine at the supermarket. It was also, imho, a better piece of storytelling than starwars parts 1 2 or 3. Like I said, it sucked me in, wanting to know what was happening, and I couldn't stop watching until the end.

A movie that is protesting the mechanization of human beings... and the destruction of the soul.... is entirely CGI, and is full of mindless and pointless violence and special effects.

The best character is Maria. This character fascinated me... the only character i can remember to speak less, is Clint Eastwood's man with no name from the old Sergio Leone western movies. It is a credit to the animators and artists and voice actor (... did they use motion capture? if so, then the actor as well) to portray this character as she is portrayed.

Actually Saito isn't too bad, there are one or two scenes that hint at his complexity... but it is hard to find them when buildings are exploding airplanes are slamming through windows, explosions pound inside your head, etc.

The kid character is not too bad... not great though. Wanted to know more about him. Sadly, I feel I know more about 'wall-e' the robot in the Disney movie than about this kid who is so eager to go off to battle.

Some other strange things,,, a kid going to battle (whats his relationship with Maria? child?).. the never-explained desecration of the entire island of Japan the lack of curiosity that Vexille displays about this (ie, how about 'where is mt fuji?') Oh yeah. Actually the entire damn plot is strange and makes no sense. I half expected for the movie to stop in some parts and et me play a level of 'starcraft'. That is the level of exposition we are talking about here... just people droning on about missions and '50 years ago the xyz corporation blah blah blah'. The thing with the iron wire makes absolutely no sense, the giant wall is the same... the inability of the 'jags' to jump, when they jump all over the land. Why does the city have gates in the first place? How about a tiny little hole you drive out of? If the security is so tight, why are the top of the walls safe to hang around on? Why attack America? China is much closer and has more 'human guinea pigs' to experiment on. What happened to the presumably 200 million+ people of the island? Did they all die? Where when and why? Did none of these 'survivors' have relatives from the past to talk about? Pile on more and more of this stuff, and you lose your ability to suspend disbelief. . . you just start going 'wtf..' and wondering if this is the level where you get some awesome upgraded ship , again, wondering if you are watching a movie or a cutscene in starcraft.

Miyazaki made a good film, called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It wasn't good because of the artwork, voices, etc, although all those are great... it was good because of the story... the world created.. it actually kind of made sense... a little bit. . .

Vexille's world has many parts that make almost no sense... but unfortunately the nonsensical parts of it seem to be rather central to the mechanics of the plot.

But , what can I say. It is a much better film than Indiana Jones 4. . . and even I like it better than some of the Star Wars prequels.

If nothing else, it is unique, and if you just see 5 minutes of it for the visual effects of the jag, just do it. Or, if you actually want a story, fast forward to the scenes where Maria 'reacts' to events happening around her.. and see her 'discussion' with Vexille... I found these scenes to be fascinating. If you only care about action, you will not be disappointed.

But if you have to have things polished up, with nice neat plots to tie things together logically... you need to take a leap of faith before you are going to get any enjoyment out of this film.

Bye and thanks for reading.

'or the vulgar marketing sobriquet, "graphic novel"' - such as 'ice haven' and 'david boring' - then you will like this movie.

its pretty much the same level of twistedness.

although i really really worry about that one big plot thing , i mean, isn't that horrible? the whole ... amorality of not dealing with it in the movie, makes it extra creepy. id prefer a nice happy ending like in 'david boring'.

the end of this one made me feel, you know, these main characters that i thought i so identified with and everything... yuck! thank god I'm -not- them and i wouldn't do what they do.

at least i hope i wouldn't.

anyways, zwygoff I'm glad you didn't have any young women having sex with 50 year old record collectors in this one. that was totally transparent and lame.

this movie is great. it has a sense of humor that is not slapstick but kind of country it is not hateful but very hopeful the movie has small problems, it is not polished like a perfect golden globe there are tiny holes that could be filled in with an extra scene or two. however, it is a wonderful work of art. in the tradition of making you laugh, cry, and shout. its telling me i have to put more lines in. alright let me think here. basically the story is a penpal (think you've got mail) mixup leads a to an Indian-owned resort hotel in the West, various odd and humorous and touching characters, most of them lonely and looking for love, fill out the plot, and interact with each other in an extremely well constructed, not contrived, set of circumstances. oh and the love scenes are wonderful; not the typical degrading Hollywood stuff.

its not really supernatural, about monsters, demons, exorcism, evil, or water.

what it is about is a woman with mental illness who loves her daughter and is having a hard time in life.

the scenes alone of the daily humiliation of life as less than wealthy in America, in new york city where a dingy grub hole is $900/month.

where hope is a school teacher with a smile like the sunrise and a big hippy shirt.

no the movie, the movie is a beautiful portrait of an American mother.

i must say, though, that near the ending the movie confused me to no end. i felt lost there. it seemed odd and disjointed, in a way that the rest of the movie did not.

but as for the scariness --- the scariness is in living through the feelings of a person who has had a lot of trauma in life and has had a hard time overcoming it, but the beauty is in seeing her do it day in and day out despite the gray prison like life she must lead in the face of being middle class and desperate.

congratulations to the makers of the movie, let it be known that you touched at least one person.

there just aren't any movies about the arms trade. let alone satires.

its not supposed to be funny. its supposed to be ironic and make a social statement. but if you cannot see the humor in a bunch of dancing girls throwing hulas around generals at a party/trade-show called "arms for peace '84", then maybe you don't have a sense of humor.

the only way i can figure that someone doesn't see humor in this is that they have never actually been to an air show, visited a defense plant, or studied anything about the weapons / airplane industry, or perhaps they have completely forgotten the Cold War and what it was like.

the idea of selling a bunch of useless weapons off to a third world dictator, while a rich Arabian sells weapons to his enemy, is sick and funny but most of all it's true.

anyone who likes family guy or futurama will have a good chance of appreciating this movie.

two guys hired to play oompa loompas in the old 'willy wonka and the chocolate factory' movie are talking in their dressing room before a day of work.

one is an old cynical SOB and the other still believes in the magic of the art form and has big dreams. OK to fill out this review, lets see, the idealist is trying to memorize lines from 'a street car named desire' while he puts on his makeup and wig. the other guy tries to give him advice but yells 'look at us, were @#$ oompa loompas'.

throw in a few funny bits about the rotten child actors and its a nice flick. not 10/10 b/c some jokes don't come off quite so naturally.

if they just cut out saying 'bitch' a few times i would give it a ten. the plot is shakespearian. the dialog is really corny but the film makes fun of its own dialog via the relationship between the 2 lead characters. the fbi cop is amazingly cast and so his his side kick. he is like some starbucks sarcastic teenager who got a hummer for his birthday.

the visuals, though, are what make this movie. they are absolutely crazy. even with the matrix and all the other movies like it, the visuals in this film are still quite something to see. they have unusual angle changes, strange lighting, atmospheric effects, zooms, low angles of motorcycle chases, etc. there are numerous times where a 0.5 second frame is injected in a really weird manner that is quite striking, such as when the woman pushes the trigger on the explosives, or when the bike rider flips up her knife in slow motion and catches it. the shot of ice cube looking at 'ford' through the train is also quite striking.

the stunts are incredible ... the product placement is completely over the top and obvious in a really silly way, but somehow it fits with the movie, because the movie is over the top in a really silly way too. and motorcyclers and racers really do have corporate logos pasted all over their bodies so it doesn't seem ridiculous.

the evil woman reminds me of a Disney villain from Cinderella or something. if you stop trying to analyze everything so much you just might have a jolly good time eating popcorn as you watch the explosions and motorbikes flying all over the screen.

Sci-fi, the channel that cancelled 'farscape', one of the greatest sci-fi TV series ever, when it had good ratings and a loyal following, because the new administrator 'didnt like space shows', has yet again done something to prove they hate their viewers.

You can simply go to Urusula K Leguin's website to see her attitude towards this movie, and read her article in Salon about how they lied to her and destroyed her books.

It reminds me of comedy central, which cancels 'tough crowd' in favor of cartoons and puppets.

I know the theory in corproate America is that 'the bottom line means everything', well, no actually it doesn't. When good shows that have decent ratings are cancelled.... and while Lord of the Rings makes hundreds of millions of dollars by being true to the books, but what we get is garbage like EarthSea, you have to ask yourself, has capitalism failed? When the people who are supposed to care about 'the bottom line' make decisions to produce horrible products that nobody wants, over and over, you have to ask yourself, what is going on? How did these people get any power at all? Was it because they know what they are doing? Or was it because they know who they are doing?

this is quite an interesting movie. i have heard hundreds of preachcers talk about Jesus but this movie, which is pretty simple really, connected with me much better than most any of them.

first of all, it reminded me so much of 'superman'. it shows Jesus when he is young. his mom and dad know something is different about him. the Christian word is 'perform miracles' but the comic book word is that he had 'super powers'.

but then he has to ask himself, what is he going to use these powers for? what is the point of having all this power? so he is on a vision quest-type of thing in the desert for 40 days. so the devil tells him, you know, you need to conquer the earth and become king of the world, king of everything. then you can bring peace and order to the earth.

Jesus doesn't buy this. he instead chooses to become like a man, and go through all the same @#$@#$ people have to go through in our lives. that is pretty amazing.

and it also shows the political situation and why they killed Jesus, in a way i can actually believe now. nobody kills someone for 'blasphemy' except an extreme nut. but everyone kills for power and politics. and in this movie they show the politics and power going on at the time.

rome had invaded the jews land. it ruled them with an iron fist. it took too many taxes, and slaughtered people at will, and defiled the temples. so there were Jewish terrorists, zealots, fighting back, and all the jews wanted a 'messiah' or someone to overthrow the romans and release them from persecution. something like another moses perhaps.

so along comes Jesus. lots of people start following him. he throws the moneychangers out and he says the kingdom of god is above rome and etc etc . the romans think he could be a great terrorist leader. the hard-line rightwing terrorist jews think he is too weak (and judas is simply one of these). and caiphus, the leader of the Jewish priests... is worried that if Jesus is not stopped, rome will crush all jews horribly, a purge-like situation, bordering on genocide.

having read a bit about politics, this whole scenario seems just a lot more realistic to me, than the 'good guy bad guy' thing most christians talk about in their sermons. and it is also a lot simpler than they talk about. i mean, sheesh. anyone who has read anything about the struggle between violence and order, rebellion and status quo, empire and subjugated, conqueror and the oppressed, will understand the scenario the movie lays out for the political situation at Jesus' time.

so when you ask 'why did Jesus die' and 'why did the romans kill him', well , it kind of seems 'in grasp' of my mind now. Jesus had super powers, but he wanted to show the poor and downtrodden that he was 'with them'. so he didn't use the powers to give himself special treatment. he didn't use them to overthrow rome in a violent revolution either. he used it to heal the sick and feed the starving. and the romans killed him simply because they were your standard big country trying to rule a chaotic little outpost they had invaded that was full of terrorists, and they tried to pacify it with violence.

what it reminds me of is martin luther king or gandhi. although these people were no super-humans, i mean MLK had affairs and gandhi hated one of his children. but they both had extraordinary powers and instead of using them for personal gain, they walked with the downtrodden of society, and they died for it. gandhi died by one of his own too, a hindu who felt he was not 'revolutionary' enough. very similar to the situation with judas. in this sense, perhaps the movie is fundamentally a 'liberal' or 'left wing' view of Jesus.

i suppose conservatives are angry that it didn't show Jesus denouncing abortion, gay marriage, and anti-war protesters, which some could argue were central to Jesus' message. those sorts of folks will definitely hate this movie for its liberalism.

rbrb is a twit. if you do not understand this movie, then you might not like it. but for those who do, it is excellent. the movie is about this crazy woman (deceased) who is obsessed with obscure 'health' ideas such as no sugar, no alcohol, in fact, nothing that tastes the slightest bit good. she has this hotel and brainwashes her children and all the guests into staying there convincing them that to leave the island meant death from various illnesses and so forth. she convinces them that there is nothing on the outside, that crossing the water will kill them, etc etc etc. the surviving family, especially the son, try to carry on her crazy lifestyle, partly by using recorded sounds of her voice played over a speaker system.

but the hotel hires a new chef, she brings revolution, with her cakes and things that taste good... to the chagrin of the son, and the worry of many of the other residents. but others love her new ways and in fact welcome the revolution. and.. well.. you will just have to see the rest of the movie.

it is a metaphor for anyone who has been in a situation where they were brainwashed into thinking a certain way of life was necessary, that dependence was necessary, etc etc . if you dont understand this then perhaps you should mature past the age of, oh, say, 12, and get out more and understand other peoples experiences, and watch movies besides terminator 3 and independence day.

this is the only movie i can remember seeing that explicitly talks about the class system and damn does it make me laugh while doing so. but if you stop and think, well, its kind of more than just a laugh, isnt it? since most movies dont go anywhere near this territory, pointing out the things this movie does.

it follows the lives of various people in different classes and watches them thru their life at different stages as they grow up. go off to school, get married, get divorced, and so forth.

I wont spoil it but let me note the people whose lives it follows: a lower class, lower middle, upper middle, and upper class person, all played by either michael palin or tracey ullman. and i busted a gut several times laughing. it includes mock interviews with the peoples parents, their wives, etc. it shows scenes from their lives, whether its snotty prep schoolmates or a rich wife reminding her husband of how many children they have. it shows the relationships and the emotions they all go through and absolutely skewers some of the crazy things people do, either to move up the class ladder, to stay up, or simply because they are stuck at some place in the class ladder. is the upperclass guy stuck or just afraid to move down? hmmm.

the only thing missing is some kind of rich person who 'gives it all up' to be a hippy, moving down the ladder. that would be funny to poke fun at them.

then there is the random plane sketch that has named the passenger compartments by 'lower class' or 'upper class' and tracey ullman as 'trevor' the airline attendant. classic tracey ullman, that.

I'm going to update this film review, being much older now. here 12 years later.

Hartley should remake the film from the girl's point of view. you know. the 13 year old one that the guy has underage sex with (i.e. statutory rape). the one that doesn't even have a name in this film. its really really ***** up . i want to know about her life, not this guys life.

in fact i don't know if i really like this movie as much as i once did. it is not exactly sympathetic to the guy... he is not the hero. but then again. i just ... i want to know how her life is, i don't care about his life. ***** him and ***** his life.

-----------

well, what is the point of this review. i reckon i will tell Hal Hartley and everyone else that worked on this movie was good for me to see.

i mean i cried and cried and cried when the mom died, and other places. i know people like these characters. i am like these characters. when i see them up there, it gives me precious visions and dreams of myself and the people i know. these dreams and visions are among the most powerful and positive things in my life, i believe.

the movie is about people, poverty, depression, mental illness, love, marriage, sex, babies, death, hate, violence, community, fear, anger, cowardice, forgiveness, art, and courage.

i mean for chrissake the main title character is an adult out of prison for having sex with a 13 year old girl, which makes him a pedophile and a statutory rapist. the movie is about him and how he lives after that.

compare it to other Hal Hartley: you got a weird fascination with porn, male heroes with extremely questionable, evil pasts, not sure how dangerous they are, anti-social hateful ranters who cant seem to fit into the whole 'job for money' thing, police in dual role, as destroyers and oppressors, but also as caring helpers, part of the community,

incredibly odd off hand meetings with supposedly insignificant and unimportant people that in fact become the most important most significant most influential characters in each others lives

oh yeah, and this movie has more to say about the internet than i have ever learned in my years of studying computer science.

this movie is quite amazing... not a big surprised after i learned from imdb that sam fuller was part writer,...

this insanely intense guy is a manager of a newspaper branch in london during the nazi raids in the early 40s. yr never quite sure if he is more worried about getting killed, or getting the jump on the other papers on some big story, like about a possible german land invasion of england. then he meets this odd british woman to push against him, maybe thats why he likes her, damn good thing he met her too as youll see in the end. its all photographed amazingly,,,

so weird to see how people lived during the bombing as well,... the london subway with its posters, its huddled masses trying to sleep, bombs, violence, the actors are really good, esp. the two leads. don ameche was gonan jump out of the screen, i got tired just watching the guy.. the last 5 minutes are pure propaganda, but so what, the rest of the movie is great.

oh well whatever, its stupid to gush over a fake version of something real that had millions of people that you could actually meet out there to talk about how truly intense it was etc.

anyways, the movie is still great.

updating this review for 2013.

to understand this film, read some of ricci's comments about making it and about gallo. its not as much fiction as i would like.

-------

don't ask me why the dad is so violent, cheap, cruel, etc. i don't know. but a lot of guys are that way. and you can see it filter down to his kid, who treats layla a lot like his parents treat him...

thats like, exactly what i thought about 5 minutes in.. she had lots of chances to get away. i don't see how they are gonna get much in life because like the guy is an asshole, treats her bad, and she is already losing herself to him when she eats meat against her vegetarian beliefs...

so its like, thats a f***ed up relationship. the dudes parents are f***ed up, their relationship is f***ed up but it is less overt, for his mom cooks subserviently for the dad, and they go to separate rooms, his mom obsessed with television shows of the buffalo football team

its like, where will this go in 5 years... is this character really going to 'change overnight' , if another bad thing happens to him is he going to go pack a gun in his pants and walk up to the guy, maybe he will have had a fight with layla that day and blow the guy away instead of having a vision and going back to her.

i don't know.. but i wont forget this movie too quick i reckon.

all the actors were like, totally grabbed me in, ricci, michael-vincent, huston, the dad uhm whats his name, gallo. and his buddy 'rocky'. not to forget the sexxxotic dancers.

this is incredible movie. i dunno why they changed it to 'seduction of Mimi' instead of 'metalworker' because its about this metal worker dude and how his lust, his ideas about his job and taking care of his kid and buying things for his kid, and his communist lover and her idealistic anti capitalism and his real wife back in Sicily and his seduction of a politicos wife to get back at him for cheating with the metalworkers wife... and the mafia always trying to control him,

and in the end.. he loses it all! tragic but oh so realistic... god damn! i could see a lot of guys i know as this dude, even tho I'm 30 years later in a different country.

john turturro plays his dad. hes really really into construction, carpentry, building houses. he quits the job for his jerk off boss and he and his brothers start their own business. then he starts pushing his brothers around kind of like his old boss did. this movie is cool the way it shows these things. it also shows a big part of the mans life it sort of feels like a trip or something 'i can remember way back before they were married, and when they met' when i see him and his wife together in their later years. theres a couple things i dont get in the movie like whats ellen barkin, what happens to her, what happens to his mom who is always screaming off-camera, did his wife really sell the houses? some people say this is all about some message about how the main guy is perfect, but i aint convinced. the last shot has him dragging his kid around by the hand like he were a doll. he is so obsesssed he drives his brothers nuts and they quit working for him. the character has got spirit and hes got problems. its a very interesting picture of the main character.

popeye and olive oyl fall in love. they find an abandoned baby and take him (Sweetpea) into their home. however hard economic times hit and olive oyls family decides to try to exploit Sweetpea's labor (he can tell which horse will win a race) to win bets at the race track. Popeye, though an extremely poor sailor, will not have his baby child exploited for a self destructive activity such as gambling. He stands up not only to the only family he knows, but the entire town... screaming 'I am what I am and that's all that I am' as his core argument. He does not abandon Olive Oyl even after such a potentially devastating quarrel. Eventually she loses her animosity towards him and they reunite. Is this not the summation of the struggle of human civilization over the past several thousand years? OK so i left out the whole thing about how Oyl is kidnapped by the 'bad boyfriend' (bluto) and is helpless and popeye 'saves' her.. sexist! yes yes yes.. well i think i still learned things from this movie even though it has that problem.

he goes around this womans house .. she obviously has some kinda mental problem and he edits it to make fun of her "i dont drop knives" (cut to her dropping a knife) .. cold man, real cold. another deal is the whole VFW thing.. theres a reason those people act like they do.. its because they saw their friends bodies ripped apart by explosions and bullets in some far off place theyd never heard of..... they heard them scream while their blood ran cold.. youd probably develop a few rituals if it happened to you.. it seems like this movie is just about crap that maybe looks funny from outside, fine for a laugh, but...where are the deeper stories behind these people.. like Chinua Achebe might say.. despair and hopelessness comes from being cut off from who you are.. the why and the how of your past.. so.. what does this movie give the children of levittown? "i come from a long line of elvis plate collectors"? there is more to these people than plate collecting but the movie leaves it all out.. that dog walking guy is pretty funny though.

one episode they redid this running gag skit of theirs only they did it as japanese kabuki theatre, complete with giant wooden shoes stomping around, kabuki mannerisms, painted faces, and japanese kabuki music. they did it well too. that's the kind of show this was. totally cool. another time they had people send in postcards their names, then they did a whole skit using their names. amazing.

i shall not forget the humor of this show. skit: a couple goes into a fertility counselor. after extensive conversation the fertility counselor discovers that the couple does not know about 'the birds and the bees'. she whispers it to them and they both get up and say 'Oh my God! that is disgusting!" and storm out of the room. HAH! There were lots of skits as good over the years. I'll always remember the hopped up UPS guy trying way too hard to do his job.