peterinvt

There is a tipping point for awfulness. Where Springtime for Hitler stops being poor taste and you start to get the giggles. While this movie isn't offensive, it is downright silly.

::spoilers from here on:: The movie opens with about 30 minutes of completely gratuitous character development. When the flashy blue lights start to hymo-tize people you know the only thing that can save you from the baddies are some powered venetian blinds in a penthouse.

I love movies where 5,000 people are sucked into the sky and the main characters' response is "Let's go have a closer look!" I laughed out loud on at least six different occasions with this movie. Apparently blowing up the mother ship with a nuke will only make them mad. If you really want to kill an alien, you need to hit it with an SUV, use a fire-ax to the back of the "head", a cinderblock, and then if you really want to hurt it-- punch it.

Nukes also seem to have an effect of about one city block, but be careful, because if you look at a nuke with a telescope- you might feel some discomfort for a couple seconds. Penthouse windows also seem immune to shock waves and sound travels faster than light in this movie.

The baddies have some rather "yonic" attributes. I think one of the writers has some bad history with a prior girlfriend. Maybe there is another layer of symbolism in the movie I haven't decipher yet-- pregnancy is also a plot point.

The last movie I saw that had me laughing this hard was Cliffhanger.

This is not a good film to come across at three am on Cinemax. It looks like a soft porn film with a fantastic looking-star, opens with a tease of a sex scene, and then deteriorates into a soft porn story-line with VERY little pay-off. Hey, it's got some kinda famous porn stars in it, and the lead character is better looking than any of them, so you might get your hopes up: don't. But the biggest let down is that she ISN'T a porn star, so forget trying to find something more graphic with her in it. Then the guy from Fantastic Four and the Horatio Hornblower movies shows up and it's even more confusing. It kinda reminds me of some of the reality shows they have on HBO sometimes, but this is a made up script. It's also a slow, grinding ride, and not the good kind. This would work better as a real porn movie or if it were about a real porn star's life. (What about a true bio pic about Cheyanne for example?) It's sad fact that most porn stars don't look anything like the lead here, just a bad dye job and a boob job. Ugh, don't waste your time on this one...

There's something about movies with TV personalities of the 70s that makes me automatically want to see them. There's this one and Autofocus.

I think this is a great story whether it's true or not. I suspect it's true in Chuck Barris's mind, but I suspect he was doing a bit more than the pot and booze he does in the movie.

My biggest beef is the casting of George Clooney and the other big stars in the movie. They clash with the casting of the Barris part. The one BIG exception to this are the very sly cameos by Matt Damon and Brad Pitt.

The quote at the end of the movie by Barris is great (spoiler?): "I have an idea for a new gameshow: three old guys sit around discussing how close they came to achieving greatness. At the end of the show, the one who hasn't blow his brains out wins a fridge."

This one is everything Eyes Wide Shut is not. Why, oh why, couldn't this of been Kubrick's last film? I think the bottom line is that for TC to be in a good role, he has to get his face bashed in. Maybe it was Kidman holding him down, but there's an outside chance that TC may actually be able to act. This is an order of magnitude better than any other role that TC has had.

There are a few slips with the direction, but to fair, the storyline is just a bit more complex than "A good looking guy gets a job in a bar and gets laid" The biggest issue for me was the soundtrack at times was too intrusive into the storyline for me. As for the ending, well, you'd have to make a pretty good case to me in order to dump Penelope Cruz as my girlfriend. Only Tom Cruise could be having sex with PC who then turns into an orgasmic Cameron Diaz and think he's having a nightmare. The only way it could get better would be if she turned into a six-pack of beer and a pizza afterward. Or to have both at the same time, but I digress...

It not very often that I go to the same movie twice while it's in the theaters, but this one was so good I almost stayed through another showing of it on the same night. The opening dance sequence is worth the price of admission alone.

The funny CGI effects are pretty cartoon like, but there's also PLENTY of action scenes to keep you going. It's almost like Roger Rabbit sometimes with the over the top effects. You're just waiting for someone to hit on the head with a frying pan and then have their head look like a frying pan.

Just about every face on the screen has at least one funny moment. There's the disgruntled tenant with perpetual Plumber's butt, the bucktooth and trampy local girl, the chain-smoking landlady and silent and ineffective sidekick who can only grr timidly when asked for backup.

The action doesn't let up much, but you still you want more and more. I've got to get this as soon as it comes to DVD. It's something you can watch over and over again.

It's not that this is that great of a film, but today's film makers could learn a lot from it. One: make the bad guy as interesting and as smart as the good guy. Two: build on the special effects, but don't make them the main star of the movie. Three: don't overwhelm the audience with non-stop action; give them some breathing points to bring about the story.

The other star of this film is Caroline Munro, who makes up for a lack of lines and acting skills with her ample and sweaty cleavage. She has some part of the story but who are they kidding? The catch-phrase of the movie is "Trust in Allah, but tie your camel"

The DVD version of the film has a short talk with George Lucas who used the two primary characters as an inspiration for R2D2 and C3PO in the Star Wars saga. Toshiro Mifume is of course the real star of the film but the story is told from the perspective of the two down and out peasants who've just escaped from a burying detail.

There is a lot of comic relief in the film and sudden twists that gives it a full spectrum of entertainment. One of my favorite scenes is a lengthy duel with spears. Mifume has just a great roll in this film as a general on the run with the sole-survivor of a defeated clan. It is one of his most light-hearted roles with an ever present "can-do" attitude. Another point for the film is that it has a clear storyline and is not overlong. It is a good start for those wanting to see Kurasawa films.

I got this on VHS for $5 and it's one of the best buys I've gotten. The film is set in a film noir surrealistic background. The story reveals at a well-timed pace, keeping you confused and spellbound at the same time. A really great role for Jennifer Connelly and having an unknown as the lead was a big plus to the film.

The world contained in the story is complete and self-contained. The ghoul-like Strangers, as Keifer Sunderland explains in the intro, are a race as old as time that have captured humans to perform experiments upon. A scene with a rat maze illustrates their morality in back-hand way.

Richard O'Brian and Ian Richardson have great cameos as Strangers. I can only imagine the conversation that took place when Richardson first considered the role...

There are some good special effects, particularly when someone "tunes," but the strong original story, great set design and character development is what brings me back to this as a late night favorite.

This could MAYBE, MAYBE, be a good film to see as a second feature at a Drive-In with the aid of some substances or after 3AM. Chis Lambert arrives at a castle under siege and the back-flipping fight scenes begin. Back-flips seem to be a here-to-fore unknown secret weapon in fantasy/Sci-Fi swordplay.

There is a taste of suspense, kinda borrow from Alien in that we don't see the Beast(Grendel) that Beowolf is to fight for most of the film(it's kinda sorta invisible) and there's some sexual tension between the princess and Beowolf. There are weird half broken futuristic weapons (chainsaw swords?), but it really boils down old fashioned kicking butt. The payoff special effects at the end of the movie just aren't up to standard and it takes a lot to ruin a story that is over a 1000 years old.

Lambert seems like a perfect casting for the part at first, but you can't help but wonder when the highlander storyline is going to kick-in for real. He looks kinda like Ted Danson with the grey cropped hair and the gravely voice he uses gets tiresome after a while. In the end, you're left to wonder whether things would have been better off for village if he had never shown up. The only really good parts of the film are the few scant fragments of the original story left intact, but what a journey it is to get there. A more traditional rendering of this epic tale is well overdue.

The film looks at alienation from many different perspectives and for that reason alone it is worth the price of a video rental. A somewhat dark, introspective rental, but it does have its points.

Having lived in Japan for six months, I found many of the sight gags particularly funny including references to the Japanese fixations of shoes, gadgets and pachinko. There is no way this film could have been written without first hand living experience in Japan and it does a nice job of condensing some of the unique twists a visitor might find on arrival. The use of the alien background sets the stage for the inner alienation each person experiences.

Bill Murray's character is effective as a tutor to Scarlett Johansson's; his character has become adapted to living a life in isolation in a crowd, while she is confronting the reality that the realtionship she has with her husband is not going to be the ideal that she envisioned. Bill Murray's off-camera wife distills their relationship into control issues of guilt and minutia, to which he is all but numb. This is perhaps the best character for Murray since his overlooked role in "The Razor's Edge." It's about time for his characters to mature and I hope his next venture is another drama.

I saw this film a week after I'd seen everything else playing in the theater and this is the most original and entertaining screenplay and movie I've seen in a long long time. One of the more interesting factors of this autobiographical movie is that the film switches frequently from actors to the people who they are portraying, sometimes behind the scenes and sometimes as the movie unfolds. One self-described geek appears first as the actor playing him and then is out-geeked by the real life person. There is great humor and drama in this film and it's one that I will buy once it becomes available on DVD. This is like watching a DVD with the extras as part of the original film. Have some White Castle Burgers and enjoy the movie.

This was the first R rated movie I saw in a theater. Best to watch late at night with someone else in the room. The sequels spoil some of the suspense of watching the first Alien since Sigourney Weaver doesn't seem like the main character for the first half of the film.

I was surprized to find that this is easily the best Terminator to date. Not much time is needed to develop the story line and it is full of great action. One million dollar 30 second scene was supposedly funded by Arnold personally when the producers were thinking of cutting it out. Some very nice plot twists in this one. Could there be a T4?

I went to see the HULK on Saturday despite reading some mixed reviews. I liked the first part of the movie which was making me think it was going to be like Darkman but 15 minutes the after "the accident," I was wondering if he was ever going to change at all. As in Daredevil, there was way too much back story, and the plot conveniances were a bit much. Some of the CGI scenes are so dark you can't tell what's going on. Despite its flaws I did like the comic book paneling done through some of the movie and the cameo with Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno was pretty awesome. The CGI worked for most of the movie, but there wasn't much in the way of bad guys to balance out the hulk. Having the hulk attacked by a guy in crutches is kinda.. pathetic? The biggest weaknesses though were that the movie ran too long and the story line too complex when we just wanted to see some smashing. Nick Nolte mumbles so much so you can't make out what he's saying and his character and plot line just doesn't add to the movie. Get the director of Darkman online for HULK 2.

Ok, there are some cool scenes in this film, but the Zion looks like it's populated with the cast of Stomp and the obvious book-ending made the last act in the Matrix a bit predictable. However, the biggest issue I have with the film is that the fight scenes are so extreme that the audience was sometimes laughing, particularly in the fight against the 100 agent Smiths-- it looked slapstick. The last few minutes give a clue to the next movie and what reality REALLY really is, but I'm just guessing and I'm not gonna tell. The movie sets its sights very high and does not quite make it.

This movie plays out like a graphic novel with a great first half, a kung-fu kicking Indian side kick and a mysterious beast that roams around munching maidens. It's dark, it's cool, but then the mood is disturbed by some COMPLETELY gratuitous special effects that spoils the "this really could have happened" image in your mind. Some nice reveals in the end, but one was predictable if you paid attention. Speaking of reveals, there's plenty of gratuitous nudity too, but who's complaining?

Better than the first in that less time was needed for introducing the many characters and there is much more action overall, but seems like they were trying to cram too much story into the run time. They definitely left the door open for X3. Nightcrawler steals the show for special effects. Overall, a much better execution than the Batman series.

This is similar to the first batman in that it is a film noir adaptation of a comic book about a character with human frailties. Unfortunately so much of the movie is spent on the childhood of the main character that little time is left for action or developing the primary characters. There are too many characters to introduce and not much is left over for a sequel. On the plus side, the fluid movements of Daredevil through the rooftops of the city put similar sequences in Spiderman to shame. Bullseye steals the show, and will hopefully return in a trimmed down sequel.

This is one of those movies that shows how you don't need special effects or glitz to make a funny and elegant movie. This is my favorite Jimmy Steward movie(although "Destry Rides Again" is close) and in it he avoids the preaching in his Frank Capra films. It's just about a nice man with a VERY unusual friend. It goes well with the movies "Arsenic and Old Lace." and "Kind Hearts and Coronets"

This is similar to the first batman in that it is a film noir adaptation of a comic book about a character with human frailties. Unfortunately so much of the movie is spent on the childhood of the main character that little time is left for action or developing the primary characters. There are too many characters to introduce and not much is left over for a sequel. On the plus side, the fluid movements of Daredevil through the rooftops of the city put similar sequences in Spiderman to shame. Bullseye steals the show, and will hopefully return in a trimmed down sequel.

I saw this film while living in the Marshall Islands, the same country as Bikini. The name Bikini is becoming lost in the world conscience and few of the younger people I've met know that it is an island or that atomic tests were performed there. It is deeply disturbing, but every high school or college student should see this film.

A sequel to this short film should be made on the long term impacts to the islanders and then re-released as documentary in two parts.