cheese_cake

a man is about to get married. he has a beautiful girlfriend and everything is going fine. yet at night he keeps dreaming about a perfect woman who makes love to him. he even thinks about her at day time. what is going on? pre-marriage jitters. something deeper. a simple story but told with nice suspense. set in Greece, which is one of it's charms, i enjoyed watching Greek life, their apartment and other things of that nature. one of the drawbacks of this movie, is the perfect woman. i didn't think she was perfect. she's tall, blonde and skinny...i preferred his girlfriend. but, hey it's a Greek man's dream and probably the director's own fantasy. it has a nice twist at the end. your jaw is gonna drop. wooo, what a pickle! about 30 mins, some nice music, solid acting, some tasteful nudity. recommended.

the movie is about three scoundrelly, starving, yet genuine artists. i loved the acting, rudolfo in particular is perfect to the T, and story of the 3 artists, since i felt i could identify with them, being a poor, un-understood writer/artist myself (yeah i know one among many thousands, but that does not detract). the movie is not too ham handed about this aspect and keeps the first part of the film very lively, with loves and adventures galore. the second part is slightly more serious what with an unexpected ending. the movie did not have the tight ending and core cohesiveness that is required of masterpieces. part of it may be that it is adapted from a book written in 1888, henri munger's - Scenes de la Boheme. by the way the director is flemish!!! highly amusing, the men seem hip to the scene and even when forlorn are in a trendy down-trodden people's bar (without the street thugs/drunks), cigarette's dangling perpetually from their mouths. the black and white cinematography and overall style of visual composition is spot on. the scene where the musician plays his "original" composition is a hoot. i HIGHLY recommend it.

France as we all know is famous for their art-house flicks, the new wave, the new new wave and of course old school gangster flicks. therefore, i was amazed to find this gem of a gangster spoof funny movie. you know a movie is good, when you can't even tell its plot, a. because it too nebulous/zany, b. it would ruin it for you. it has more twists than a road winding along the ocean front of California and it runs like a well oiled Peugeot (i know) from a vintage class. fast and so so smooth.

it starts with a gangster who just got out of jail, named Pomme-Chips (hehehe...french fries, genius)...who's out to get his revenge on the guy who stole his girl. he's got friends, there's gambling, the guy he's after has a cousin who's in a play, his girlfriend gets seduced again...they all meet in a bar, then a play house, an elevator, a party with a general, a huge viola has a significant cameo, skeletons and so on. i really just can't tell you more about the story, but it will not bore you for a second.

the dialog is insanely good, eg, 110 00:10:45,573 --> 00:10:50,442 Did you see her hips sway? Only women who've suffered have that. 111 00:10:50,613 --> 00:10:53,730 Are you talking nonsense now? - Yes.

the title translates to "salad by the roots"...no idea what the analogy is to. the cast is semi-famous from that era and they do a killer job. the girlfriend starts out hot and only keeps on getting into more stylish (cough) outfits. good ole un-feminism. i like the whole french style, direct and to the point. the old uncle is a hoot...i'm laughing just thinking about that scene. the director is unfairly obscure outside of France, despite having made a bunch of comic gems, but the fking french never provide any English subs...la moral superiorite et la frenchies....see my french even got better...tut a laire, aloe, bon nuit (sounds good in my head...hehehe) !!!

This movies is about a Hong Kong gangster. He gets shot in the beginning and while comatose has time to reflect on how he became the way he is. There are 2 different versions of his story. Then he wakes up and some more stuff happens. This is one of those movies which is not so much plot driven as by the ambiance, the characters and the dialogue.

The main actor, Francis Ng, is awesome. He is wickedly funny. The supporting cast is OK. The production quality is somewhat uneven, although i loved the vitality of the scenes shot on the streets of HK. The story and dialogue are the main scene stealers. Very unorthodox, with characters thinking within themselves, as they converse with others. Entertaining and highly recommended flick.

i am surprised at the number of people who thought this was great, for me it was just a little bit too intellectual. if i have to think to figure it out, then it's really not a comedy. although there were parts of this movie which i enjoyed immensely, like when the female co-worker says all this outrageous, sexual things and the ending was also very good, very clever. gambini is stuck in my head. i don't know why people are bytching about the angles and the camera crap, that didn't bother me, at least i think it didn't. it was more it took time to figure out what type of comedy the director was aiming for, he did not make it easy for us his viewers to get it easily. he is probably contemptuous of us, but no matter i enjoyed this movie once i got into it and i think i need to watch it again, some time later, and i will probably enjoy it more, although some scenes are tedious. actually, the lead actor is one of the best things about this movie. he is so into being this perfect actor, that i really enjoyed his performance, the other's were like cardboard. i feel like von triers is pulling me to him and at the same time pushing me away. go watch it.

this movie is the product of a perverted individual who does hard drugs and is a pedophile. his fixation is with young to adolescent children, especially the male gender. this movie is NOT about the poor, crazy people in small town USA or that tornado crap. he is not interested in that at all. this movie is a experiment in exploitation, not only of the people involved, since he gets them to do things they would not normally do, but of YOU. because you watched it and now it effects your everyday thought. the first 30 minutes were interesting for the novelty, after that it was plain retardedness, since I can imagine crap myself.

the movie is about different people and their unrelated stories, although they all cross paths eventually. the movie is set in Taipei, Taiwan. one group is a Japanese TV show looking for teenage delinquents in Taipei. another group is a boy with an obsession with porn and the high school girl who has a crush on him. the last and funniest group is a gang of three wannabe gangsters who run around on tricked out scooters. there's Taiwanese rap (very good), unrequited love, wickedness and other hi jinks. the movie is very funny. all the actors act very well and the story is believable overall. the director mocks youth and it's angst and yet realizes it is very true for young people in such a fast paced world. true love is one of the motto's and wickedness is punished in the end. overall, this is a feel good movie, about enjoying life and it's pleasures and being good people. i found this glimpse of Taiwan fascinating and hope they make more movies like this. go see it, it's good!

a young man gets into an accident. he now owes people money. he lives in present day Almaty, Kazakhstan, where jobs are scarce. he turns to dubious characters for help which leads him deeper and deeper into trouble. i really enjoyed this movie for a number of reasons. first up, it gives us a glimpse of present day Kazakhstan which is very real. you get a feel for the city, it's inhabitants and what kind of struggles they are going through. the acting by the lead actors (poor state run art school students ??) is also very refreshing. rather that emoting like crazy, they seem almost resigned to the fate that is being inflicted upon them. it is the sort of desperate calm that truly happens in life, rather than Hollywood manufactured fake emotions. i also enjoyed getting a glimpse of this vintage post communism society. only communism has not gone away, it's ghost still lingers and the people ache for it. the certainty of a job, security, the apparatus they are used to. the director reflects on this is some side monologues, but thankfully does not get heavy on it. the ending of the movie is rather abrupt, but seems completely plausible within the context of what is going on in that country right now. watch this one, you will not regret it.

The movie is seemingly based on an event from Japan's past, but it is really Kurosawa's allegory on Japan's condition at the end of World War Two. A prince, estranged from his brother, and six of his loyal retainers wander through the forest. They all look disheveled and hard up. They must cross a barrier manned by officials who are not exactly friendly to them, before they can move on to improving their life. The prince is disguised as a lowly porter and we rarely see his face. his retainers are warriors but are now forced to don monk's robes and indeed in passing through the barrier manned by the unfriendly forces (read American's) the lead monk must read a treatise in which peace is extolled as the reason for their existence. basically, the monks are Japanese elite, the porter is the Japanese public, the prince is the emperor, the barrier officials are the Americans, whose leader is wise and although he knows the truth allows the monks to live. They are many truths within truths here. Indeed, in the end the adviser to the emperor says, "we must move on (read from the feudal system) if we are to survive". a very fine movie, short yet poignant. one can easily see even in this early feature of his that Kurosawa is a master at symbolic imagery. By the way this movie was made in 1945, but not released in Japan until 1952. After watching it, I can see why it was delayed. It would have been extremely painful as a Japanese citizen to watch this in 1945, with their country in shambles around them. highly recommended.

the lead actress is about to get married in two days. her sister is in the psychiatric ward because her boyfriend left her 2 years ago to go to kenya. out of the blue, he shows up at the girl who's going to get married's place. they get drunk and have fun not sex. in the morning the girl find's out about the guys hiv test results, but lies to him. they buy a dog, score drugs, get her hair done. the guys have a bachelor party in a separate scene and her woman friends give up looking for her and have a female party. lots of drinking, lots of fake laughter. she tells the guy what he's got, he goes apeshit, they develop some melodrama, then decide to go visit her whacko sister. they break into the building and have an exchange of meaningless dialogue, get arrested by the police, she makes the wedding and then more stuff happens...but telling that would spoil the movie for you :) everybody in the movie is superficial, as are all emotions. when they are happy they are too happy and when they are sad they are too sad. there is no balance and of course no bearing to real life. the dog was the best actor and he wanted to run away from them most of the time. i thought the lead lady to be very beautiful but looks horrible later on, what with the dreadlocks and when she's crying, she looks fat and puffy. the person who made this movie thought he was being cool and he carries it off in some places, but dude is that really what life is all about? don't we all know that the ultimate cool is being for real.

This movie is about 2 men who bump into each other under unusual circumstances and decide to embark on a journey in a minibus to the desert aka morocco. along the journey their antagonistic feelings towards each other change into friendship as they share various adventures, such as getting their car stolen and then recovering it, going out drinking, etc, together. along the way they meet a young woman running from her past and a young man who collects various junk because he thinks everything has meaning. it's a rambling journey of self discovery, love and friendship. this movie tugs at your heart as you slowly get absorbed in the various characters travels and emotions. The changing scenery is exciting and the acting very good. overall i liked this movie a lot and would recommend it to everyone.

This movie's plot is of the type, where there is a bunch of interesting weird characters who go around doing weird, crazy stuff. It's kind of like slapstick in that it's more physical with facial tic's, people falling, brain transplants, bombs exploding, etc. It's a Czech 1970's new wave creation when everything was very hip and groovy and women were just discovering short skirts and beehive hairdo's. So we have a king, an astrologer who can tell the future using the stars, an evil military guy, a beautiful blonde who is there just for our eye candy really and the star lead woman who roles around hitting into all of these subjects. This lead movie lady is really very good, for a moment i thought she was the astrologer guy in drag, that's how well she impersonates him. Why does she do that? Can't tell you man, that's why this movie is so crazy. Give you a hint thought...brain transplants (lots of them). You are bound to have fun and laugh yourself silly with this good natured and family oriented (12+) spoof of people and their lives. Highly recommended.

plot synopsis is below, but it's a pretty funny spoof of intellectuals as werewolves and the good guys being kids who like mcdonald's and kung fu movies....the guy kills them with his TV remote and coca-cola acid. hilarious !!! Pavel and Eva are two teenagers who live a happy life full of McDonald's food, action movies and pop music. But one night, Pavel stumbles upon a secret gathering of intellectuals in the woods on his way to the video store. Not wanting to be discovered, the intellectuals attack him and the chief intellectual bites him in the leg. Some times later, he begins changing... Will the power of television, Eva's love and pop star Michal David's music save him from the intellectuals' evil clutches?

the story takes place in inland china in the 70's. it shows the life of a middle class family relocated to the inland factory by the communist party. these people who were originally from shanghai, consider life in the mountainous town to be futureless for themselves and their children. the father in particular takes out some of his frustration on his daughter, who is just blooming and is in love with a young man.

this movie works on several levels. it shows the conflict between the parents and the young woman, it shows the secret life of her social age, it discuss's the cultural revolution (the kids dance to western music) happening in china about that time as contrasted to the staid and solid existence of a factory worker. the movie does critique the communist government, but in an elliptical manner, since i guess it does have to pass the censors in china. but i think that works to it's credit.

this movie shows a complete and very accurate view of china in this time period. the houses, the kitchen, the school, the way they dress and their aspirations, the attitude of the parents and the children, it is all spot on. my only negative would be that the storyline for the young girl is somewhat overly dramatic. it is as if the director started by focusing on her and then shifts to a more general broad view of life. i especially enjoyed the acting of the father and overall i thought it was very realistic and well shot.

i highly recommend this movie.

the movie is about the life of Sili, a young handicapped girl in Dakar, Senegal. it shows her struggles to earn a living in a world which is cruel yet can be wonderful too, if you have the courage and the go getter attitude to battle it out. i found her story to be very inspiring. also, you get to see dakar, senegal as it is now. a third world nation which is developing and yet at the same time the poverty which is present everywhere. highly recommended !!!

because IMDb requires even more commentary, here are some of my personal observations. even though the people are poor they are stoic about it. that is an uniquely African attitude. the frustration of individual's is contained within the body/soul until it comes out in a single anguished scream. or so it seems to me. also, the depiction of poverty in this movie is spot on. if you have never been to a third world country, well this will shock you, but it's totally realistic. actually, real life is much worse, the part where she flashes her money, in real life somebody would have taken it for sure. so the movie is kinda naive, but overall i liked the feel good message of the movie.

The movie is about three male friends living in Los Angeles. They have just completed college and are working temporary jobs. They have little to no money and it's not clear what exactly they want to do, although one senses they have lofty artistic goals. The main character is typing a novel and is seemingly very jaded. He has seen it all. The facade is chipped by his blossoming relationship with a woman. they have both started to share their true feelings. he also has a roommate desperate for companionship, whom he disdains. good story, good acting, good everything. if you ever wanted to be a starving artist and bogart cool, but now just go to your mind numbing job and sit behind the desk, this movie's for you. walkingintherain.net

man this movie sucked. i knew it would suck when i saw the trailer. the entire damn thing is an amalagation of some of the scenes of his life, but they don't flow well together and are like disjointed pieces. the characters are never really fleshed out, like Jan! who the hell thought up of Matt dillon for the lead...bukowski (fake name) real name henry chinaski, was pockmarked, hook nosed, ugly son of a bitch. matt dillon is a pretty boy who would get raped in the first skid row joint he ventured into. barfly was much better, plus mickey rourke seems like a tougher son of a bitch. don't watch this movie or as a matter of fact any movies on bukowski....go read his books, way way way better!

the french make everything chic! even work! the movie is about a day in the life of a young girl, who gets pregnant, dumps her boyfriend and is starting her first day as a maid in a big hotel. so cool! the boyfriend is dumped i can't remember for unknown reasons, but hell the baby will grow up by itself. ah now i remember, speed is the main motto of this movie. the girl runs around everywhere, she does everything at top speed, make beds, deal with problems, watch the baby grow, unfortunately those of us who live life, know that a year doesn't just fly away, it has to be lived, that we have to wake up, brush our teeth, go to work, scratch our ass, come back from work, drink ourselves silly, get made fun of by vain blonde girls and then do it all over again. and definitely kids don't grow up by themselves. so yeah, some of the other reviews will have you believing that she's totally in charge and ah so in control, which is true, but in a fake sort of way. in a way, like someone who's got a sheet load of cash and is only play acting with life. unfortunately, we don't have that luxury, but hey it's good to see on the screen. i particularly like the the whole maid scenario, those are some of the best scenes of the movie, like when she is making the bed and this old geezer grabs her. i wish that was me, like a little cameo part. go see this movie!

i like french films, especially french films where everybody thinks they are the bomb, nobody works and everybody lounges around drinking coffee. that's my ideal in life, but enough about me. the story is about a bunch of middle aged people who each is going through some sort of crisis. basically they meet each other and discuss their life, not in a direct way, but through inneundo. are they full of themselves, yes, but it's still fun to watch. not the best of film making, but while we rot on this planet and babes like the one you see on this movie are out of our grasp, we can watch this movie. man this review is lame! fudge IMDb! fudge comments!

a group of people is touring the countryside in a coach. they include a purported magician (max van sydnow), his wife/assistant, an old crone who they refer to as grandmother and who gives an impression of practicing witchcraft and a merry, complacently fat coachman. on the way they encounter a man who is dying of alcoholism, who stirs up some deep feelings in the magician. when they reach a city, the man dies and they fall in the clutches of the city magistrate on account of this and other matters. the elite of the city bands together to watch the magician's magic show. they mock the magician cruelly, accusing him of being a charlatan, a fake. after the show, the magician plays a series of tricks on the parties, which scares the hell out of them, and makes it seem like supernatural forces are present among them. but, in the end, his tricks are revealed and in an astonishing moment, the magician forgetting all his dignity and composure, grovels for a few kronor's (dollars). not getting even a single kronor, they are threatened with jail if they don't get out of town immediately and henceforth continue on their journey. many people do not get this movie, given that the artist/magician is shamed at the end. but that pivotal scene is totally misunderstood...bergmann's movie's work on many levels and that which is presented plainly is often the least plain, much like the magician's magic. the magician/artist is correctly depicted as being unsure of whether he really is an artist or a fake. the conflict within him is part of being a real artist. bergmann's point was that art and magic are similar. illusion is but a feint, a parry in a different direction, while the audience is lured unsuspecting into a bigger trap, which when revealed is devastatingly powerful in what it says about their psyche. the magician's magic is concerned not with tricks but with subtle psychological manipulation. when the extent of his psychological grasp is revealed in the end, he is immediately hated, because he understood his audience better than themselves. their whole mirage of being the superior scientific elite is shattered. about the only complaint one could make about this movie is that the magician is overly tormented. as in other bergman movies, one wonders what is the source of this torment. while it could be explained, it's best to enjoy this additional hue to the wonderful masterpiece, that is this movie, and let it percolate in your psyche. it goes without saying that the performance of the actors was superb, really exemplary. as was the cinematography. you will not see better cinema than this.

rateros, is about a street level hoodlum in modern day quito, Ecuador. this moving cannonball of destruction, intersects with various people's lives, leaving mayhem and chaos in his aftermath. the guy seems to have gone on the wrong path due to personal misfortunes, like the death of his mother and is progressively getting worse. he is getting addicted to smoking cocoa, which is filmed with a gangsta cool, which is hard to beat, and almost makes me want to do the same things too. i can identify with this movie a lot, since i too was once on the wrong path like this. lying and using people came easily to me and it wasn't that i wanted to hurt them or do bad things, it was just the way the day spelled out for me.

rateros, is a lot like train spotting, the British movie about junkies. while it stays true to the emotions and reality of such a lifestyle, one could say that the protagonist is unusually lucky. such a lifestyle of drugs, using people and in this movies case, eventually progressing to killing people, can only be affected for the short term. people who live this way do not live long or live long outside of prisons.

the movie supports an ensemble cast of characters, who play their parts excellently, but angel is the centerpiece. the actor who plays him (Carlos Valencia) gave a virtual tour de force performance. he was very very good and believable down to the blackened nicotine stained lips and whinny insinuating way of street talking. the cinematography is also very good, giving a very good feel of the culture of the burgeoning metropolis, that is quito.

overall the movie is very good and another milestone in the tons of very good cinema coming out of south America, and one of the first which has put Ecuador on the map for me. i highly recommend that you watch it.

the German response to the french new wave. hardly! this movie follows the true lineage of main stream German cinema, in that while exploring human relationships and human drama it does not get too existentialist about it. the characters and story is grounded in reality and has a little bit of action, a la German TV detective shows, to quicken the pulse. the story is about two women sharing a house somewhere in the German mountains/alps. one of them is in a destructive yet highly sexual relationship with a ski instructor. the other mops around feeling lonely and meets an intriguing new stranger. the ski instructor is well defined in that while he is a cad and cheats prolificly on his girlfriend, he is not too one dimensional. the feeling one gets about him is that he is young and full of his strength and sexuality. although, there are scenes where in typical new wave backlash to the immancipation of the German male, he sits back and picks lint out of his navel while ordering his "woman" around. as in get the coffee, biatch. not to spoil the story, but he gets his just reward in the end. the mysterious stranger who becomes a seemingly rewarding boyfriend for the other female lead is less well defined. he is weird and i kept thinking now he will be a junkie or a serial killer, but he just gets amnesia. although he does steal a car in the beginning with disastrous results for a local farmer, which is one of the plot tangents which is meant to evoke universal human suffering empathy. the two lead females are humdrum boring and seem to get along well, while searching for a good man. personally, a good dog and more masturbation, is what i would recommend to them. the movie also features some good cinematography, especially the shot in the end of the blonde girl in the red sweater, smoking a cigarette, as she looks out of the frosty window at the cloud draped mountains. all in all, twyker delivers an entertaining film, which is perfect for a Saturday afternoon after a heavy meal, when heavy thoughts and philosophies are best avoided. might i also recommend taking your buxom (if your'e lucky) girl toy ;) to this movie in a dark theatre. geocities.c*m/free_love98

when it comes to the art house scene, America provides slim pickings. and by art house i don't mean independent/IFC sponsored films, i mean more in spirit, as in compared to bergman, tarkovsky, etc. movies which are not so much concerned with actual events/stories plotted to timelines as the exploration of the spiritual and mystical aspects of the human existence. movies where logic is abandoned and dreams are encouraged. dead man is one of the few American movies to fit in this genre. the story concerns a young man who moves to north west America to take up a new job. however, he does not get the job and soon gets into trouble, which puts him on the run in the countryside. there he meets native Americans and has various encounters/adventures. the story as such is nebulous, the main points it makes are in spirit. as such it does not even try to make a point, you just feel it, like blood beating through your veins. johnny depp, for a marquee actor, gives a very good performance. the supporting cast is also very good as is the camera work/visuals. the soundtrack is very unusual and while arresting can be annoying at times. as an American i am proud to recommend this artistic gem of world class quality. geocities.

bill murray portrays hunter s. thompson, a 70's era san fransisco journalist who championed various liberal causes. he is also famous for consuming large quantities of drugs with his lawyer friend. (see "fear and loathing in las vegas" for a more fun and perhaps accurate portrayal of their weekend in las vegas.) the movie tracks what hunter did over a period of years and adds goofy antics/rebel actions for fun, but it does not dive deep into his psyche. the lawyer friend is more delineated in that we see him loosing a court case, where this young man gets 5 years in jail for having a little bit of marijuana. the movie moves like a placid stream and does not try to do more than entertain. this movie is recommended for a Saturday afternoon viewing, preferably after eating a heavy and appetizing meal. geocities.c*m/free_love98

I had reviewed the movie before and maybe because i was in a bad mood had given it a pretty negative review. I have since changed my mind. The movie is definitely not realistic in its portrayal, rather it operates on a poetic level with a feminine view of life. Logic is not the strong point, but rather the overall effect. It's about a young woman moving from the country to a big city and her adventures there with a hardened, capitalistic crowd. She finds love and trials to test her, in the end coming out happy with a lover. I RECOMMEND watching this movie, as it is an above par story of a woman's journey, set in the exotic (for me) country of Budapest.