sbekam

I eagerly bought Dream on DVD and could not wait to watch it based on my previous experience with Kim-duk Kim's work. One of my all time favorite is Seom (The Isle) and the other Hwal (The Bow) not to mention Address Unknown and Spring, Summer,.... wow all great movies. However, after watching Dream and throughout the film I tried to see what the point of this film is. Maybe it is because I am not fully aware of cultural things in Korea or because I am a type of person who doesn't sleep a lot and cannot relate to the characters but I couldn't get the point of the film specially when a lot of things Jin (Jô Odagiri) and Ran (Na-yeong Lee) could do to solve their problem. One being falling in love with each other as mentioned by the doctor (which apparently they did towards the end of the movie) amongst other things. I was disappointed with Mr. Kim's new work as he is very talented and should know that all his movies are important and he should choose projects more carefully not to taint his reputation.

It took me over 15 years to get a chance to watch this movie. I heard about The Jar when it first came out to the international market back in 94 at the time when other Persian directors were making a move into the International market (directors such as Bahram Beizai, Daryoush Mehrjui, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami). Ebrahim Forouzesh a writer before the 79 Iranian revolution became a director and made some good movies. The Jar is one of the best of his work I have seen so far. The movie has a very simple story about a teacher and his students taking place during the previous regime of Iran and happening in an area that no one knows about or cares about. The village people are all talk and no action (typical Iranian attitude) except this woman who is labeled as crazy by the village master who not only does not help to repair/replace the broken jar, he tries to stop the process as well. Ebrahim Forouzesh and all crew members have done a great job.

Wow.... I loved this movie. It's been a while since I saw such a compelling movie which makes you think deeply about life's unfortunate turns and opportunities it offers. Although this film is only 20 minutes long, it seemed like a full length feature. Whatever the director Avie Luthra wanted to portray was done in a short time. You can see Joy Mwandla "Lucky" at the beginning of the film excited about going to town for school and better life, burying his favorite toy airplane and soon finding his dream washed up by his uncle's comment who says he did not expect him until next week and if he wants to study, here are the books and Lucky realizing he is on his own, making friendship with the Indian Lady who is a vicious old... What a beautiful portray of real life living in a society who is being discriminated and do discriminate as well. The Indian woman did a great job so did Lucky. Bravo

Based on the review ratings from IMDb (7.5) which I now wonder how it is done, I bought Heroes De Orra Patria (Heroes From Another Land) on DVD since I had never seen anything coming from Porto Rico before and I was hoping to be surprised with a great movie such as Cyclo (1995) from Vietnam or The Syrian Bride (2004) from Israel. I was anxious to watch it as soon as I got home. Right from the beginning of the movie I realized that I had made a mistake on my purchase. I have had good experiences in the past with Latino movies especially from Argentina and Brazil but Heroes De Orra Patria turned out to be a disappointment. Nothing more than a negative war propaganda which even failed in conveying the message. I would not recommend this movie and will be cautious in future to only rely on IMDb ratings. In addition to bad acting, directing and poor sound quality, the war scenes looked fake and the Viet Cong did not look like Vietnamees.

When foreign films make it to the U.S. market, they are usually good to excellent movies. It costs a lot of money for film makers in poor countries such as in Asia, Africa and South America to distribute their films and put a sub-title on it for the U.S. audience. Therefore they only export the good ones. But of course there are exceptions to the rules in particular when dealing with Indian and Chinese movies. Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne is one of those. With directors such as Satyajit Ray, Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta among others from India, you expect better movies coming from there. It is a shame to see movies that have the same subject and plots repeated over and over. The only difference is the actors and actresses but everything else is the same. Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne has everything that you see on a mediocre Indian film except it has a couple of good song and dance plots. I gave this movie a 5 and would not recommend it.

I have traveled to Vietnam many times for business and pleasure and I am sort of familiar with the pain and suffering that ordinary people went through before the war, during the war and many years afterward. The White Silk Dress is about a love story between two very poor servants who have high values even though they are struggling to survive. For a poor country with limited means, this movie portrayed the events well and in my opinion not slanted towards one side or the other politically. Vietnamese people are very conservative when it comes to nudity and I was surprised to see scenes of bare breasts which in this movie was part of the plot and well done. I enjoyed the movie very much and definitely recommend it.

I had seen a couple of Amos Gitai's movies and enjoyed his work specially Kadosh which was well done and based on my previous impression of him, when I came across Free Zone, I bought the DVD. However, Free Zone is a disappointing movie. No real story line, weak connection between plots, awful sound quality, long meaningless shots, primitive acting (specially by Hana Laszlo when she is milking the cows and hears the explosion and other scenes) and so many other flaws. Opening scene did not make sense and too long, closing scene was primitive as well. It seemed like maybe Gitai wanted to relay a message in this movie showing life and misery of living in that part of the world. But he failed in his effort. Special feature on the back of DVD indicates optional English subtitle. Except a few scenes that characters spoke Hebrew or Arabic, there is no subtitle. I normally watch my movies to the end for if I may miss something but was tempted to turn this off a few times. I would not recommend wasting money or time on this movie.

Until I watched this documentary on TCM, I did not know or heard of Henri Langlois and was amazed to learn what he did for cinema. He went through great trouble and hardship to be able to collect and preserve these movies and memorabilia. Watching his interviews and footage you can appreciate his love for cinema and the best part of him was that he collected movies from all over the world unlike some others who only preserved what they liked. Great directors owe their success to this man as he made it possible for the younger generation to have a chance to watch great works of cinema in his theater. One can appreciate his efforts knowing when he started to show these movies, VHS and DVD's were not available and if you missed a movie once it was on big screen, you may never get a chance to watch it. Watching this documentary, I realize that my collection of DVD's would have not been as large if it wasn't for Mr. Langlois. Henri Langlois was a visionary and ahead of his time by decades. Too bad not too many people know about him.

Ladrón que roba a ladrón or Bandoleros is a stupid movie which apparently is made in U.S. in Spanish language. Looking at the rating of 6.9 from IMDb, I figured it must be a good movie and I bought the DVD. The rating in IMDb is usually accurate and this is the first time I find it disappointing. I will probably end up giving this movie away since I don't think I will ever watch it again. This movie is a repeat of other successful or (fairly successful) movies made in the past. However, with bad directing, acting, boring plots, etc.. While movies such as Ocean's 11, 12, etc. are available, don't waist your time on this unless you are content with a mediocre movie.

I bought this movie on DVD thinking that having awarded or nominated for so many awards (shown on cover of the DVD), it must be a good one not knowing that it did not win nor nominated for any (per IMDb)and the writing on the cover is so small that you can't check the source. It is a waste of an hour and a half of your time sitting through a repeat story of a typical struggling South American village family with pregnant wife, sick child, unemployment, corrupted officials, etc. in hope of finding work in U.S. and gambling everything they have to achieve that. The unnecessary long shots, unrelated plots, bad editing, bad camera work and bad acting make this movie one of the worst ones I have seen for quite so long. This is the second disappointing movie from Mexico related to the same issue I have seen recently. The other one is America 101.

Unlike some recent movies coming from Iran that move you through their plot and daring expression of pain and suffering of women and young generation, House on the Water is a big disappointment. I purchased the DVD because of my familiarity with Entezami's acting ability and was hoping that this movie would be similar to his many great movies he has done in the past. Although he well in this movie, but House on the Water was overall, a waste of time. There is a small part by Jamshid Mashayekhi another great Iranian actor. But Entezami and Mashayekhi's presence is not enough to carry the movie.

I watched this movie on DVD that I had purchased a while back.This is the first movie by Ebraheim Hatamikia that I really understood. His first couple of movies were all about the Iran-Iraq war and did not get to me as much. But Ertefae Past was something different. I is a great movie especially if you are a little bit familiar with the people from South-Western region of Iran. The character of the mother was played well. Ghassem, the main male character did an excellent job. It was evident that the director had to deal with a lot of limitation imposed on him by censors. He did a great job addressing issues and viewpoints of different characters.

I was shocked to see that the authorities who make up these uncivilized rules against women allow filming of these proceedings. It was a relieve though to see some of these women are fighting the system despite the road blocks they face constantly. You can easily see the sense of victory on the face of the woman who came to the court with her two boys, complaining about her husband not coming home and not providing her financial support, once the judge mediated and made the husband obey his wife's conditions. A very good documentary about what goes on behind the closed doors of Iranian divorce courtrooms.

Well done. Not too much narrative. But a whole lot of information on what is really going on in Iran. This documentary touched off on what caused the revolution and spent a great deal of footage on what is happening now. This film is not a repeat of what you normally except to see and it takes its time on each of the issues it covers.

What a great movie. I enjoyed it in particular due to limited amount of dialogue. The movie carries you on without much talk. It is full of twist and turns. You can't wait to see what happens next on each plot. You feel connected to the main characters and don't want them caught. Beautiful scenery and great choice of colors. I will watch it again and recommend it to others.

I just came upon this movie by chance. It was well done with a lot of surprises and twists. At times, you would feel sorry for the main charactor until you come up to the next plot. This movie is worth watching again.

I enjoyed this movie and I think it was well done for us who don't really know what is happening outside our world. It reminded me of Mira Nair's movie Salaam Bombay and likewise depicted the lives of small children living in the street. I do recommend it to others.

Bashu deals with a very complex issue which is the vast cultural differences in Iran. It is masterfully done by one of the best directors of Iran, Bahram Beizai. Bashu is the name of a young boy from South-Western part of Iran who happens to end up in Northern part of Iran and experiences the cultural shock. In comparing these two parts of Iran, Beizai masterfully brings out the differences between the people, the climate, the costume, the language, and the past influence of Super-powers (Russia in the North and Britain in the South) meanwhile tying the story together to make a delightful movie.

I saw this movie when it was first released, and have watched it over and over again and recommend it to all.

What a beautiful surprise. I loved Malena for its honesty, simplicity and the way it portrayed the life of the young boy in the early 40's. It reminded my of a lot of good movies I have seen throughout my life. Malena is one of those movies that gets stuck in your mind. I enjoyed the movie very much and recommend it to all.