dbrookfield

I've seen a lot of great long, slow art house movies over the past 40 years. This film has its moments, but I can't consider it a great film. It has the requisite quirkiness and creativity here and there, some attempts to deal with the vagaries of life and meaning and emotion, but there is an overall slow pace with a lot of boredom and repetition. Perhaps half of the dialogue is straight out of Uncle Vanya: endless rehearsals of this play, endless listenings to the dialogue of this play in the car. So, better love Uncle Vanya and a slow pace. What payoff there was was just too small for me. You could literally edit out half of the movie.

Really depressing material with the focus on suicide. B-movie production values, but passable. Kind of a slow burn, but takes an interesting twist halfway through or so, which is partially redeeming. The plot then hits a moment of confusion but gets back on track and manages to wrap up with another decent twist at the end. Maybe an acceptable time waster, but I just don't understand the high ratings at this time (7+). It ain't Cape Fear (nod to the ripped guy with the tattoos).

The movie is listed as 1999 but is clearly from the 80s or at least contains all the worst of that era. So all the bad hair, hats, Cosby sweaters, parachute pants, etc. and all the bad synth music. One review said it came out in 1992.

The writing is consistently lame and the acting has some surprisingly bad line readings. Kind of seems like a film school project, although I guess that's being a bit unfair to film schools. The music choices are bizarre at times, they should be playing something like hip hop for the scene and instead they're playing some lame country blues or whatever. The fight scenes are fairly amateurish and laughable, and like dogs in a play-fight, it's very clear that no one was hurt.

The characters are almost universally unlikable and difficult to relate to. The central character has a very slight arc of redemption that is a bit unbelievable.

Most of the actors, playing thugs, would be better cast as wholesome members of a 1950s sock hop. If it has any redeeming qualities it would be in the bad B-movie kind of sense. Tribune Media Services has it listed as 2.5 of 4 stars, I think 2.5 out of 10 is more like it.

Nice mystery, good production values, good actors.

But the English subtitles are literally the worst I've ever seen in my life. The subtitles themselves are clear, I've seen movies with problems of readability, but here the problem is that they're only translating about half the dialogue. It just seems kind of random in any given conversation whether or not they translate certain lines or not, and in some cases, this is key dialogue they skip over. Anyone familiar with subtitling knows they leave small amounts out, but for purposes of clarity and readability. Here, like I said, it's random. Whoever was responsible for the subtitles should be fired, with extreme prejudice.

Having seen (and enjoyed) the Harry Potter movies, and to a lesser extent, the overlong Lord of the Rings movies, I decided to join some friends for this bit of fantasy.

I do think it plays well as a kids movie, but as an adult, it's just a bit too slow-paced and cutesy for my taste. The characters were thin and underdeveloped and the action scenes tended to fall short for the most part, at least in comparison to other films in the genre. I'd recommend you check out Potter and his Goblet of Fire instead.

The ending, in my mind, unfairly rewards the youngsters. Thousands strived long and hard for this particular goal over the centuries and died trying, while the kids reap the rewards simply because they are fulfilling some arcane prophecy. The message seems to be, "no need to work long and hard, kids!"

I found this nearly unwatchable, indeed, I'm not sure I have paused a movie in Tivo so many times to go do other stuff. If you're a fan of cringe-inducing embarrassing moments this may well be a fantastic movie for you. If you're like me and find these kind of things not so much funny as sad or painful, probably not.

I watched it largely on the strength of Holly Hunter and Kathy Bates, two of my favorite actresses. Kathy is fine, but is not really a main character. Holly gets a lot of screen time and gets to play an interesting range.

If anything, what I'm calling the fourth act makes it all (possibly) worth the wait. It's an exciting, nasty turn, and for me it was the payoff for what would otherwise be unmemorable. The fifth act is a pretty standard wrap-up.

On a surface level, it has all the markings of a horrible movie - the dialog is often bad, the plot ridiculous, the music jumps wildly from one cheesy genre to another, and the editing is often poor. But this thing has a watch-ability to it that many other bad movies don't, even beyond the kitch factor, and the kitch factor is pretty close to perfect here. The movie does have a structure, and ramps up it's over-the-top quality to an unbelievable level by the end. More than decent time killer for a lazy afternoon, and this movie could be a good choice for the right group of friends to watch together and riff on. Hilarious.

I think if you are into the sixties kind of thing, as I am, you are obligated to waste about 80 minutes of your life watching this barely watchable trainwreck. The saving graces of this oddity include a surprisingly apt social commentary on sixties values along with a number of relatively well known actors caught in early (and embarrassing) footage. It's as if the producers of Laugh-In sat down and decided to write a full length film, covering all the high points (and more) of the issues between the flower children and the establishment, then put it in the hands of a couple of hippies and gave them about a $10,000 budget to complete it. Hardly a classic, but in its own way it does capture how truly strange that time was, the silliness, the over-idealism, and the uptightness of the establishment. Clearly not for everyone.

This was a great premise, with the idea of an existential detective agency providing a backdrop of intellectual fodder as well as plenty of opportunities for humor. Add a cast of theoretically good actors, and you should have a great film. Unfortunately, the effort falls well short of its potential. Frankly, I thought this film was awful - slow, with a few sparse laughs. The intellectual side of this movie was there, but just in passing, a few bits thrown out all too quickly amongst some rapid fire mutterings for the most part. The slapstick humor just wasn't really working for me, and judging by the audience reaction, it wasn't particularly working for a lot of people. You just can't fake this stuff. Hoffman has relatively little experience for this type of work, and this performance came off more like his Ishtar debacle than Tootsie. I think he plays much better as a character in a funny environment than as a funny character. Wahlberg came off surprisingly well, as did Naomi Watts, who mainly just looked beautiful.

Yep, great look to the film, some great cinematography and use of color.

Great visual style. And there's some meaning there, and some love. So there are a lot of elements there, but ... ultimately it's just lightweight packaging used to enclose a bunch of fight scenes.

It just doesn't move.

It ain't no Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, that's for sure.

4/10

I have found Moore's previous films to be largely entertaining, particularly Bowling for Columbine, but was surprised (given the high acclaim) to end up virtually twiddling my thumbs, debating whether to just bolt towards the end of the movie. It started out well enough, but for me it trailed off substantially. I would have cut a good 20 minutes out of the film.

I will not be voting for Bush (just to let you know something about my politics). Watching BFC, I became interested (that's a good thing, right?) in looking up some gun-related topics and was surprised to learn that Moore was a bit disingenuous with some of his material. So before watching F911, I labored thru all of the "56 deceits" page available on the internet. It was informative to watch the film knowing what things were left out and the complete story behind some of the scenes.

Now, I will be the first to praise Moore for raising some valuable issues, and I would also let you know that many of these "deceits" are subjective or immaterial, but the bottom line is that there were a number of disturbing disconnects from reality in the movie. In all fairness, no one that I have seen on any side of politics has written a 100% truthful book, for example, generally because research of that depth and breadth is hard to come by, but Moore's intellectual dishonesty in some of this film is to me inexcusable.

I tried to think of it as just "entertainment," kind of a Daily Show via film, but in this case for me the entertainment was surprisingly lacking, and I find it disturbing that many will look on this as a documentary, as the gospel truth. I have to assume that the universal praise for this film has a lot more to do with belief systems than with film-making.

I like most of Quentin Tarantino's work, a lot. And this movie has a lot to recommend it, particularly interesting camerawork and photography. You don't see a whole lot done with overexposure and backlighting like you do in this film. The quirky, Mamet-esque at times, unusual dialogue is at times a bit much for me but I got it in the cartoony way in which I am sure it is intended. But I think some of the quirkiness of QT's films comes from Quentin himself, and this is a guy that is a bit too self involved for his own good much of the time (at least on the talk shows that I've seen). Ultimately, this movie suffers from that in some of the excrutiatingly slow, labored speech that is intended to be dramatic. Maybe this is in itself part of the cheese factor that this movie embodies, but between interesting bits, action, and comedy are vast boring wastelands of "Eyes Wide Shut" slow paced dialogues. Making so much of the dialogue in this pace simply isn't good art in my view, there is a whole palette that can be used.

I think if you are interested in the subject matter, the content of the movie carries it. The comments thus far have been extremely positive, which is not quite in line with the current rating. So my comment would be to warn you that there is a lot of mediocre acting and the photography was not great. I'm sure the budget of the movie had a lot to do with it. And in some way the lack of great lighting, etc., and the "lameness" of the movie tends to work in its favor to present the subject matter as very ordinary, very commonplace, in opposition to how society wants to view this as something very unusual. I'm not a long-winded person. The need to pad this out to meet an IMDB requirement of ten lines would seem to ensure that there will be a lot of filler in these comments.

The film came highly recommended, but it simply did not hook me. I love movies that give me something to think about, but the actual moments of the film, the characters and dialog, have to entertain me in some way, and DD was pretty mediocre in this regard. I loved Mulholland Drive, so I clearly can enjoy movies that are puzzling, thought provoking, and fairly well outside of the mainstream. I liked some of the subplots and ideas, but overall to me this was a lackluster film. I'm surprised that it rated as highly as it did, but hey, it happens.

Main annoyance was this comedic element where the writer chose to portray the Japanese as talking with a lisp, saying W's instead of R's. That was bizarre. Hello Mr. Writer, velly solly, but what they have a hard time with is R's and L's. They most definitely do NOT talk like Elmer Fudd, okay?

I was one of those who saw this when it first came out and remembered it as quite compelling. I was excited to find it on cable almost 20 years later. Now I am much more aware of the not so great acting and the unbelievably heavy handed nazi symbolism, but it still ranks as a fair ride. For younger folk it still may be a 10, but for more experienced cineasts it may only rank as a fair afternoon time-killer.

Clearly not for everyone, but I love to vicariously peak at the seamy underbelly of life, and this is one degeneracy-packed film. Was paced fairly well, dialogue was mostly decent (better than a lot of hit hollywood movies, anyway), and the plot gets resolved in an interesting way.

Gauguin floats and struggles through life, wanting only to be back in Tahiti. There's a sweet housegirl (Sofie Grabol) who wants to be with him, and a dark-skinned girl who lives with him. Both model nude for him, and both are petite, young and slender. If nothing else, they make it very entertaining if you are so inclined.

This is the first decent film I've seen in a while and just felt the need to comment. I saw the original foreign version of this a couple of years back and enjoyed it, and I think they did a good job of translating it into a solid American movie. Definite Hollywood budget, but with at least a bit of an independent/art feel. Many scenes seemed to be lifted note for note from the original, and I have no problem with that.

Pacino already has the look of someone who has been up for days, and he's got the cop thing down to a science. Based on the trailers I was a bit afraid that Williams wouldn't be able to pull off his part, but I was fine with it, and Swank has a good supporting role.

We need more like this and less of the Sum of all Fears crap that Hollywood spews out.

Sorry, this just ain't a great movie. I expected a middle of the road Hollwood movie, but it doesn't quite measure up to that. Manages to build only a low level of suspense using one of the highest suspense scenarios around.

Actor-wise, Ben Affleck is a very lucky man - his pay to talent ratio must be one of the highest in the world. I just don't get him as a leading man. Must be his looks because I'm not picking up charisma or a tremendous acting chops.

Mild spoiler ahead (although I've seen it in reviews), you've got people who have been exposed to a nuclear blast going la-la-la in their happy ending scenario. No worries, a little premature death and cancer ain't going to get me down. Jesus.

Critically acclaimed by some, but why? More slow paced eurodrama that goes absolutely nowhere hanging on by the barest thread of pseudo-intellectual underpinning. Totally preposterous plot. Every chance to spice up this supposed psychological "thriller" was passed over.

Saw this when it came out on cable. Seems like it had been embarrassingly brief at the box office and panned by critics, so my expectation was that I would probably find it too lame to watch, but instead I was pleasantly surprised. A bit of good silly fun, some sentiment here and there. For me, light years better than the equally critically panned Resident Evil.

Okay, I went in knowing full well this would not be great cinema, but I was just looking for a good time, some action, some Milla, and I was banking on the fact that a couple of reviews said this was at least the best of the "game" movies.

False. This movie makes Final Fantasy look like Shakespeare. Bad, bad, bad. I was frightened exactly, umm, zero times. This movie is entertaining only in the same sense that Plan 9 From Outer Space is entertaining. The attempts at both horror and scifi were quite humorous at times.

Completely unabsorbing. Occasionally I would be stirred to interest with some development here or there, but it was all too brief. Milla-wise, the beginning has a flash of nipple. If you hold out to the end you'll get a near Basic Instinct moment. In between you might want to go to the lobby and check out some posters of upcoming movies.

This movie would have benefited from some extensive rework on the story, the storyboard and less clothes for Milla. I mean, as long as you're going to be gratuitous, you might as well do it right.

The film has a nice look about it, and there are plenty of elements to work with, an orphan finding his way among the bullies of the orphanage, a love triangle, an older woman, a kinky strap on false leg, and a ghost to boot! But somehow, with all this to work with and delve into, it still gets real slow in the middle. Starts out promising, really, ends fairly well, but a nap would be appropriate in between.

Narcissists are the bane of existence, unless they happen to be on stage and entertaining us. Aside from that, I find it best to stay far, far away from such folks. Some call such people "characters," I call them a**holes. They make life difficult for those around them and John Wilson is no exception. In fact, Eastwood's egocentric behavior causes life to become fatally difficult for one poor soul.

I am puzzled by those who see this as some of Eastwood's greatest acting. It soon becomes clear that he is doing an impression of John Huston, which is fine, and is recognizable, however I don't think he delivered a single line which I believed. I was constantly taken out of the movie by what I considered to be in fact very bad acting by Eastwood, at least vocally. Supporting actors were not much better, that one guy attempting a poor German accent I believe, and I felt they were all blown out of the water acting-wise by the folks who only had a couple of lines. The spectacle of this narcissist's self centered romp through his life provides a number of action sequences which do suit Eastwood, including a bit of "Any Which Way You Can" bare knuckle fighting. The film is sparse, probably intended to give a documentary feel. Very little in the way of soundtrack. Photography was disappointedly lame. In a movie such as this where I am looking for something to distract me, interesting photography can help. However, probably due to the documentary style choice, the only vaguely interesting shots were brief transition shots between scenes.

Ultimately the narcissist is forced into some realization of his gross selfishness and negligence, and finally comes to accept his obligations to others, although it seems more out of defeat than anything else.