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Both posts I put up here have disappeared...wonder why? Maybe the filmmakers complain, maybe some IMDb official likes this film. Great, but what about those of us who are revolted by it? Vulgarity and raunch are fine with me...provided they are FUNNY. This film is devoid of laughs. And it's humor is based on cruelty and humiliation; the cast is constantly degraded -- barfed on, almost defecated on (NOT making this up, folks)--for "laughs." There are folks who like this film. God bless 'em. But I completely agree with the poster who said the film insults gay teenagers, presenting them as foul mouthed, sex crazed pigs.

The director and producer are exploiting gay folks worst instincts for money. Is that something to be so proud of? Let's see how long this one stays up.

I can't understand why this film has not been greeted with close to raves from most of the critics; but then, it seems that lots of folks resent Ed Burns' career. He made one good film, Brothers McMullen, and then produced a series of half-baked follow ups. Plus, his good looks gave him an acting career that others must envy.

His good luck aside, Burns is back in top form with The Groomsmen, an insightful look at a group of boy/men tip toeing into middle age. His ear for the venacular, in this case Long Island/Bronx Irish, is just about perfect, he creates an inviting sense of time and place and his work with the actors is pitch perfect.

Ironically, the only weak performance in the film is Burns'. His good looking Irish poker face is not compelling enough to communicate his character's inner turmoil. Matt Dillon, could he have been afforded, would have nailed this role. That said, Burns contributes a basic sense of human decency that permeates the film; it's in his character and in his writing.

I loved the whole cast, but was particularly moved by Matthew Lilligard's portrayal of a "regular joe," a bar owner who dreams of his glory days as a garage band musician now that he is the father of two. His speech about his children, buzzed, standing on his porch in the middle of the night, is a WONDERFUL example of expressive acting and, for me, the highlight of the entire film.

Don't blow this one off if you feel you've been burned by Burns in the past (sorry about that). His ending is too pat, unworthy of some of the honest, painful material that has preceded it; but all in all The Groomsmen makes me look forward to his next film. Check this one out, probably will be great when it hits NETFLIX.

It's not just the boat that's sinking, it's Hollywood corporate thinking as well. Which genius decided that remaking a 35 year old disaster film on a $150 million dollar budget, WITHOUT STARS, was a good idea? Aside from all the obvious flaws -- the last minute cutting that eliminated any character development and build up, the phony (however expensive) looking CGI work, the interchangeable starlets in the female roles (Stella, Shelley, we miss you!)-- aside from all that POSEIDON is a monument to the corporate thinking that now rules the studios: it worked once, it'll work again. WRONG. It rarely (Ocean's 11 comes to mind as an exception) works again.

Beyond that, the film has some exciting moments BUT THEY DON'T MATTER BECAUSE THE WHOLE THING IS SO HOLLOW. You couldn't care about these characters it your were paid. And there are few if any incidental delights, which the original had plenty of, like the squalling that Stella Stevens and Ernest Borgnine shared, or Shelley Winters' sacrifical swim. It's all swept away in a cloud of CGI. If I see one more HUGE FIREBALL in a film I'm going to grab a fire extinguisher and spray the screen.

This should finish the disaster genre until a new group of clueless multi nationals purchase the studios. What's next? Brat Pack remakes of St Elmo's Fire and The Breakfast Club with Lindsay Lohan and Josh Harnett? Please, spare us.

This gay comedy has been advertised as a combination of Farrelly Brothers grossness with "When Harry met Sally" deftness, a tall order that writer/director Craig Chester is simply unable to deliver. For starters, he doesn't really have a plot, just a situation (two guys who had a bad date hook up 17 yrs later and don't know it.) So the movie just sort of lays there and Chester tries to throw in funny bits, i.e, a female comic (Parker Posey, looking great) who is not funny (THIS is supposed to be funny???), wacky parents, etc. These bits are as uninspired as the non-existent plot.

As for the grossness (a stream of diarrhea, for example), it's just gross, not funny. AND there are some awful original songs, the worst being a country western number, "Shit Happens." Kinda makes you yearn for Patty Duke crooning "It's Impossible" in "Valley of the Dolls." Anything good? Yes. Noah Segan is very funny as a pretentious young actor, there is a very hot dancer in a red T shirt and you get to hear John Lennon's lovely "Love Is" in the final scene. Otherwise, this is a wash that never could have gotten produced, save for whatever contacts Craig Chester must have. He's a good actor (though not in this, where he is clearly too old for his role) and should stick to that.

Skip "Adam and Steve" and rent "Kissing Jessic Stein" or "Trick" instead. Life's too short.

...and Lifetime movies, if you ever hope to appreciate this wan, trite bloodless attempt to move chick lit to the screen. The picture postcard quality of divorcée Diane Lane's life, and her extended family, rings false from the very first scene. Director Gary Goldberg utterly fails to evoke, in either his writing or directing, the ebb and flow of normal life that might let us sink into this story. Check HBO's "Empire Falls" to see how it is done by professionals.

Lane is wasting her middle years comeback on clichéd characters such as the grade school teacher/divorcée in this flick and it's a shame. Her talent -- if not her pocketbook -- would be better rewarded if she fought for roles in films like "Upside of Anger" or "Crash." As for Cusack, he has begun to loose his youthful charm and is replacing it with a small but apparently growing wheel of fat around his middle. The third shame of the casting is that Lane and Cusack have little or no chemistry together. After flat, sparkless scenes in which they date, the ever clumsy Goldberg has them go their friends and rave on about how "great" and "soulful" the communication was. I was scratching my head. The lady next to me was sleeping.

You can get the same sentiments herein in a quick hour of "Oprah," AND "Oprah" has commercials so you can raid the fridge, hit the potty, etc. And the dog turds I referred to in the title? Those would have to be Goldberg's "jokes." Without a laugh track, this man is lost. Beware.

Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who appreciate "Shampoo" and those who don't get it. For the latter: this is not a balls-out sex farce, but, rather, a sexy comedy of manners in which a group of Beverly Hills ladies play "La Ronde" with George, their stud/hairdresser.

The film taps into modern mythology by having real life Casanova Warrne Beatty, who produced and co-wrote the film, play the bed-hopping hair stylist. He's never seemed so relaxed on screen; even when he's pained, the pain seems funny.

Shampoo can also be considered the concluding chapter in a triptych of Julie Christie films. Arguably she portrayed the same woman over ten years, first as an aspiring model (in Darling), then as a bored, rich housewife (in Petulia) and, finally, as a brittle, sun tanned kept woman in Shampoo. Al Pacino once called Christie "the most poetic of actresses." Well said. Who else could make you care so much about a selfish narcissistic woman?

This is also a time capsule film for its depiction of late 60s Los Angeles. The bell bottoms, mini skirts, psychedelic music...it's all here, gliding in the background, skillfully mixed by master director Hal Ashby. He manages to create a tone of wistful comedy that sustains the film over its two hours.

Shampoo is SERIOUSLY funny. Beatty's made some great films -- Bonnie and Clyde, Reds, Bullworth -- but Shampoo just might be his greatest.

This working girls go to hell soap is a time capsule candidate, courtesy of its immaculate physical production, 50s costuming (look at all those bows and pearls), creamy Johnny Mathis theme song and oh-so daring (for its time) sexual attitudes. Rona Jaffe's novel, on which the film was based, keeps on being republished, and just a few years ago Vanity Fair actually devoted an article to this delectable bon bon of a movie. Take a look at the new DVD transfer and you'll know why.

The three leads - Hope Lange, Diane Baker and Suzy Parker - echo the girls from "How to Marry A Millonaire" or Carrie Bradshaw and her friends from "Sex and the City." "Gentlewomen songsters off on a spree..." Their romantic adventures and sexual entanglements are the stuff of paperback passion: empty caramel corn calories, devoid of nutrition, impossible to resist snacking on. Lange is genuinely touching in her neo-Grace Kelly way, Baker is properly dim and idealistic as a timid virgin who gets (gasp) knocked up by a (hiss) cad. It helps that the cad is played by Robert Evans, the throaty voiced, coke snorting film mogul who surely has lead many an innocent young lamb to the slaughter in his Beverly Hills bedroom.

Suzy Parker is fascinating in the first half of the film, all blithe self assurance and knowing remarks. She struts her stuff with the panache of the fashion icon she was in the 50s. Alas, she's not up to where the film sends her: into madness and obsession. But she exudes glamour and savior faire and her acting is at least adequate. One wonders why the critics loathed her, virtually driving her out of movies a few years later. Perhaps an aloof attitude on the part of a good looking woman is just too much to bear. It sank Ali McGraw's career a generation later, and, when you think of it, Ali McGraw and Suzy Parker were basically the same actress.

The film's only major flaw is a weak ending. It pretty much collapses into a romantic swoon at the end, rather than rising to a wham bang melodramatic finish, like the other famous soap opera from producer Jerry Wald, "Peyton Place," which had Lana Turner weeping and gnashing her teeth during a rape trial. Here, Hope Lange wanders out onto the New York sidewalk, spots burly, eternally hung over (but now, of course, sober) Stephen Boyd and they simply walk off together...into the sunset, one presumes. Otherwise, this is pretty much the definition of a guilty pleasure.

Oh Yes...there's also Joan Crawford, breathing fire at all the young girls and smoking cigarettes while she hisses to her married lover over the phone. And the titles are done in hot pink, with ribbon lettering that recalls the department store ads of the late 50s. Don't miss!

SHOCK TREATMENT has a delicious hook: an actor is hired to impersonate a lunatic so he can be put in an institution and become friends with a lunatic killer who just happens to know where a lot of money is hidden. Of course, there are all sorts of complications, primarily head psychiatrist Lauren Bacall, who also has her eye on the money and figures out the actor's game. Not a bad set up, but the script is full of holes and lame dialogue and the direction is lackluster. But Bacall, as a precursor to Nurse Ratched, is a hoot as the villain and gets to administer shock treatment to the actor (Stuart Whitman) to try to break him! The ending isn't bad either, a couple of reversals and a nice battle with a pitch fork. This is one to watch with one eye closed on a rainy afternoon, which is just about how I caught in on Fox Movie Channel. In her autobiography, Bacall refers to the film as "truly tacky." She's right on target, both in her performance and her critique!

Yes, the two leads are cute and they do some (awkward, almost chuckle producing) frontal nudity, but beware this stinker. Nothing is as tasteless as a soufflé that doesn't rise, and this gay rom-com has all the tasty buoyancy of a hockey puck. Forget the cheap sets, poor cinematography and weak soundtrack; a gay indie with a bunch of newcomers is entitled to take short cuts. But the script! So much lame drivel masquerading as dialogue, with an occasional "hip" quip -- about Meat Loaf or Anne Heche -- that stands out like a sixth finger on a hand it's so clumsy.

The actors, no matter how cute, are at sea with this poor a script. Scott Lunsford is a total cypher in the impossible role of a deeply passive straight guy who pretends to be gay so he can romance a screechy straight woman. She's Emily Hands, and you haven't seen this raspy a performance since Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls. Ryan Carnes is way cute as a gay stud, but has little presence. He and Lunsford share the silliest, most embarrassing nude scene in recent history. After some (poorly shot and choreographed) oral sex, the director actually shoots them pulling up their pants so we can see their weenies! A new low of sorts. And yes that Jim guy from American Idol is the gay geek. His character is the closest to a real person, but he's no actor.

This is the worst gay comedy I've seen since All Over the Guy. If you flipped for the West Hollywood drivel, run out and rent this. Otherwise, stick with Trick or Passing Glances, real movies about real gay people.

I only go on so long because I am AMAZED at all the good reviews this film has received. Does the director have hundreds of dear friends, or have gay people lost their common sense and good taste?

Fans of psychedelic trash claim to love this movie, but it is largely unwatchable. Shot in the wake of the success of "Wild in the Streets," which Robert Thom wrote, AIP allowed Thom to write and direct his first film. His freaked out ambition led to something that was barely released. The basic story is like Tennesee Williams' "Orpheus Descending" or Pasolini's "Teorama" -- a hot, vaguely homo erotic stud comes into a wealthy household, sleeps with everybody and DESTROYS them baby!! Destroys them! Tripped out with psychedelic fashions and bad rock tunes, this sounds like fun; but Thom has absolutely no sense of pace and the movie just bumps from one poorly directed scene to the next.

The cast is at sea through out the film and no wonder: Holly Near, now a famous lesbian singer and activist, plays a fat girl who gets raped by the rock star. She must hide her head in a pillow when this comes on TV. Jordan Christopher comes on like Jim Morrison lite and Roddy McDowall and Lou Rawls are cringe worthy as "groovy" sidekicks. Camp lovers may relish Jennifer Jones' degradation as a wealthy nympho/porn star who lusts for the stud, but her dialogue ("You bloody sadistic dyke!") resists rational delivery.

The most interesting thing about the film is the homoeroticism; quite explicit for its day. But that would hardly sell it in 1969. In fact, after previewing the film as "Angel, Angel Down We Go," AIP realized what a dog it had and shelved it. A year later they rushed it out on a cheap double bill, changing the title to "Cult of the Damned," and giving it an ad campaign that implied it had something to do with the Manson murders. Even that did not do the trick. AIP's cutting may account for the film's bumpy narrative, but what is left on screen is truly unsalvagable.

The "high" point of all this madness comes when the fat heroine gets "high" and sees the other cast members SITTING ON THE CEILING!! The scene continues as if nothing odd has happened. Utterly bizarre! It's too bad after the pop-comic book psychedelia of "Wild in the Streets," that Thom fumbled this film so badly. The rock star lead was obviously created as a follow-up role for Christopher Jones, but he escaped to A films like "Ryan's Daughter" for a few years before surrendering to drugs. No one escaped this mess unscathed. Only for the morbidly curious. You have been warned.

Time has been very kind to this life of Jesus film, which now stands with Spartacus and Ben Hur as one of the best ever spectacles of the 50s/60s big screen era. Any film on the life of Christ opens itself up to attacks (you are dealing with a subject people have DEEPLY personal and conflicting opinions on), and King of Kings was trounced by some critics on its release, especially the no-nothing twerp at Time who called it "I Was a Teenage Jesus."

Oddly, as block headed as the nameless Time critic was, he hit on something. Jeffrey Hunter is gorgeous as Jesus, auburn surfer length hair, deep azure blue eyes and a laid back "peace and love" quality that presaged the hippie revolution to come. Unwittingly, Hunter's face and presence bring out the homo erotic undertones in the life of Jesus Christ. He was attacked for this performance, but it seems daring, secular and even sexy by today's standards. Free of the solemn piety of Max Von Sydow in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" or the masochism of Jim Caviezel in "Passion of Christ," Hunter's Jesus truly rocks.

This film is miles above either George Stevens' (stolid) or Mel Gibons' (hysterical, S&M religiosity) take on the same subject. For that you have to tip your hat to director Nicholas Ray who makes the story work by telling it in the kind of populist, secular terms audiences can respond to. His frames are beautifully composed and the action scenes rock big time. Watch the camera sweep back during the Christian's attack on the Roman's fortress and you'll know what I mean. Hats off also to Miklos Rosza whose lush music sucks you right in, and Orson Welles who provides a fittingly dramatic narration, a la James Earl Jones in those Verizon commercials.

Sorry to seem so flip about a life of Christ movie, but, hey guys, most of them are either blandly, piously sleep inducing (especially Stevens, even Zefferelli)or right wing revenge fantasies (Gibson...whose movie will embarrass him and his kids for decades to come.) The thing about King of Kings is that it's REALLY entertaining. Try it...you'll like it!

If you think of horror movies like musicals, then you have to say that CURSED has a terrible book (Kevin Williamson's lame script) and a so-so score (Wes Craven's shock scenes). Craven gets off a clever, scary bit with a woman (Mya) being attacked by a werewolf in an elevator, but he labors mightily at the end to bring off the kind of big scenes that he did so well in SCREAM. The real downer is Williamson's formulaic script, completely lacking in the wit of SCREAM, with a tired werewolf plot that goes in two directions -- high school and show biz -- and never unites them satisfactorily. In fact, the film has little shape, bumping from one scene to the next, probably the result of all the reediting it went through. But nothing helps. This is a dog. BEWARE,

This is pretty much a lost noir of the 40s, not on video and rarely shown on TV. Too bad, because it was Otto Preminger's follow up to "Laura," and it's pretty damn good. All the traditional noir elements are in place: a drifter, Dana Andrews, who sails into town on a bus, hooks up with a sultry waitress, Linda Darnell, and romances an old maid, Alice Faye, with plans to swindle her and run off with the waitress. And then, of course, there's a murder. The film is brim full of atmosphere -- shadowy scenes in the hash house where Darnell works, a song that keeps playing on a jukebox, a la the "Laura" theme (and by the same composer, David Raskin), lots of sharp, smarmy character actors on the edge of things. The mystery is fairly compelling and the film stands up very well for something made more than half a century ago.

Dana Andrews is rock solid as the shifty drifter, who might, just might, be a little better than he thinks he is. Linda Darnell is senstational as the waitress, hard, calculating and incredibly voluptuous. Her close-ups are the equal of Rita Hayworth and Gene Tierney in the forties.

Reportedly, Alice Faye left Fox after she lost several scenes in the editing room, where Zanuck decreed that the film should play up Darnell and her carnal allure. But Zanuck was right. Darnell is sensational and Alice Faye is not touching as the old maid. She's about ten years too old for the role and looks matronly. She probably shouldn't be blamed for her misconcieved performance since she was miscast in the first place. Had Zanuck cast Dorothy McGuire, or some other, younger woman who had a modest, touching quality, the contrast to Darnell's sluttishness would have been far greater and audiences would have cared more about what happens to the old maid.

Even with this flaw, however, the film is a little gem, well worth trying to catch. With a more appropriate actress in Faye's role, this might have been a major noir.

Great scene: Andrews walk into the diner where Darnell works and hears the film's theme, a low, sultry love ballad, playing on the jukebox for the umpteenth time. "Does that song play all day long?" he grouse to Darnell. Bored as hell, she rings up a sale on the cash register and, without even looking at him, snaps back, "I like it." Great stuff!

In its own sexy, shoddy way, this 1969 film version of an early Elmore Leonard novel is better than the recent "hip" version with Owen Wilson. It mixes film noir conventions with teen exploitation riffs and a fair amount of nudity for a guilty pleasure that's redolent of late 60s/early 70s cheeseball cinema.

Ryan O'Neal is a drifter (good hearted, of course) who hooks up with Leigh Taylor Young, a bad girl out for "kicks." Leigh gets Ryan into bed and then into vandalism and robbery and...well, you know where the film is going. It's the journey that's the fun.

O'Neal had a sort of bruised likability that worked for him on TV's Peyton Place and he uses it effectively here. Young, married to him at the time and his PPlace co star, is sulky and seductive and, oh yes, naked a lot as a girl who just wants to have fun. Their brief love scenes have a fair amount of steam to them and watching them drop their bell bottoms to go skinny dipping gives the whole movie a certain "Boogie Nights" flavor. The (then) O'Neals were one hot couple.

There's a good supporting cast: Robert Webber, Lee Grant, doing a dry run for "Shampoo" as a horny divorcee, James Daly, a nice, slimy villain who pimps out Ms. Young to some business men, and Van Heflin in what may be his last role. On the downside, the direction is a bit flat, lacking in the kind of edge that can really make a crime story cook. And the score, as noted in another post, is atrocious, poured like syrup over scene after scene.

The Big Bounce definetly qualifies as a guilty pleasure, what with Ms. Young going hysterical and smashing a living room up with a fire poker and O'Neal smashing an opponent smack in the face with a baseball bat, and in the credits no less. All in all, this version is preferable to the Owen Wilson one in which you can practically see the actors' tongues push out their cheeks as they condescend to the materail. Here there's a fair amount of sweat, exploitation and a hint of camp as the good looking leads go through their noir paces. Worth a rental.

Mary Tyler Moore can still turn the world on with her smile, but she rarely gets to do so in this grim, tedious family film that harkens back to the days of such solemn treacle as "Mrs. Wiggs Cabbage Patch." The script is ponderous, loaded with cliched dialogue and moves things along at a snail's pace. There's an awful little girl "actress" that makes you want to reach for the curtain swag to strangle her with. Then Burt Reynolds shows up with yet another face lift and that pancake toup of his; he's beginning to look like an alien. Mary and Burt in an old fashioned TV movie sounded like a good deal, but I've had better times at the dentist than I did with this stinker. Beware

Of all the recent gay indie films, this is hands down the worst. It's not amateurish, like some of them (Broadway Damage for example), but it's far more annoying than other, less polished efforts. The problem is lead actor and writer Dan Bucatinsky. Someone must have told him he can write and has charm...Bad Idea!!! He portrays an obsessive priss by simpling being one, and you wind up hating him. The distance a better actor could lend the role is totally missing.

And the writing is atrocious, lots of "cutesy" arguments that are supposed to tell us something about the characters but really just waste time. Wait till you get to the scene where the two boys (and that's what they seem like, boys, not men) argue over "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear." The "clever" dialogue makes you grind your teeth it's so numbling banal and self-congratulatory.

The film also brings in a straight couple to try to balance things. Their story is as flatly written as a daytime soap, and far less compelling. The whole thing plays out like a laughless gay sitcom pilot: boring people, limp dialogue and some embarassing "big" scenes at the end to try and whip up your interest.

I was astonished that people like Don Roos and Doris Roberts were associated with this film that reeks of a vanity project. Then someone told me that Roos and Bucatinsky are partners. Hey, that's very sweet, but it doesn't justify infliciting this tripe on an unsuspecting audience.

This claptrap is about one notch above the amateur gay sitcoms you can see on West Hollywood cable access. Beware!! Rent "Trick" instead. THAT was a good movie...this thing should have a bell attached to it so you can hear it coming and cross to the other side of the road!!