basildave

I was looking forward to quirky, offbeat, eclectic, maybe even eccentric but with the same wry humor and punchy delivery as Grand Budapest Hotel... what I got instead was more like some film school student's bad imitation of a Wes Anderson movie.

Where to even start? The play within a play within a movie seemed like a really novel idea but it kept loosing it's cohesion and quickly became yet another reason to interrupt the occasionally amusing dialogue in the movie. I was expecting this really cool linking of the different elements of the story that never came, for example, when the alien comes down the first time and steals off with the meteorite, I thought they were going to tie that in with the death of the mother...maybe the alien was coming back to pick up his(her?) mother, whom he left on earth near the same place as Augie's wife.

I thought there was some significance to so many of the details (even the roadrunner ...meep meep) but none of them actually held any meaning (maybe that was the point?). Much of the movie seemed to deal with loneliness, grief and melancholy, yet again, these were not really explored and, since the whole outer story was about the play, they were not real emotions, they were "acted" from the outer story and the "Conrad Earp" character (another name I expected to have significance) didn't explain much about it, unless "it" was the brief gay kiss between him and Augie.

Fast forward to the outer story's final scene "You can't wake up if you don't fall asleep", repeated ad nauseam by the "cast" in the outer story... seems to be saying that within your own life you're not really awake because you haven't given yourself over to "sleep" (death maybe?).

There were some interesting scenes and high points the to movie, the cast is stellar, great acting... With the exception of the scene above I never felt like running screaming from the theater. I was actually always waiting for the "next scene" to be the "Ah hah! Isn't that clever?" but alas, it never came.

I found this film frustratingly emotional but lacking the ability to really push me towards caring about the characters that I wanted to care about. I've read about many of the scenes that Spielberg painted in this film (from past documentaries on him) and I felt like this was just a collection of those scenes and the ending scenes were all rather pointless. I think a real historical drama on Spielberg getting various movies made ( like Jaws or Close encounters) with his teenage years just given a (first half of the movie) sequence, would have worked better. Overall, it was okay, entertaining enough to keep my kind off the flight I was on, however, it's not Spielberg's best work.

This is just a horrible remake with no real personality of its own. It doesn't inspire any empathy towards any of its two dimensional characters. Rainbird's revised role in this remake, which seemed like a good idea, falls flat with bad acting from someone who is normally a good actor. I can only blame this all on the writing and directing, both of which were prone to meandering and losing focus of the story. The special effects, which should have been off the charts, were, in my opinion, inferior to the 1980's version. An awful build up to the climatic scenes, which again fell flat.

So, I've seen lots of reviews where the main point is that the children of the royals are being viciously attacked in this caricature. I think it's important to remember that this is a cartoon, a satire and yes, completely overblown in its' portrayals. Like most things offensive, it's only bad if it's not actually funny and this show sometimes falls into that category. I try to put myself into the head of a royal watching the show and I feel like it's such an exaggeration that it's not really offensive BUT it's also not as funny as I think they are trying for. There were some poignant and even moving moments with Alan Cummings character mourning his.wife, mixed in with his comedic relationship with Prince George. BTW, I don't interpret this as an attack on the children because they are portrayed more or less as adults. It's kind of funny seeing the other kids in George's class react to him winning everything undeservedly..(and wondering if that's the way it really is).

One thing I do think about is that Sophie Turner and Iwan Rowen are young and now very famous actors (and of course, Orlando Bloom/Alan Cummings were famous even before GoT), so there is a good chance that they would wind up mingling with the Royal Family at some point in the future...hmmm that would be deliciously awkward now wouldn't it?

I have been begging Hollywood for a good movie and I went to Ad Astra in the hope that my cinematic prayers had been answered but alas, not.

The suspension of disbelief required for this movie was off the chart, which was surprising given NASAs promotion and commiseration with it. I mean most of the other physics goofs throughout the film were relatively minor (and well enumerated in the goofs section) but riding a nuclear explosion from Neptune to Earth and you just happen to be pointing in the right direction??? Wow, it's actually insulting.

The pace of the film started out almost like an action adventure but then broke into long periods of pointless boredom. The MacGuffin of the antimatter device was throughly useless and made no sense (blow this dangerous device up with a nuclear weapon... yeah, that's the ticket). BTW all energy effects like heat/radiation etc abide by some form of the 1/r^2 rule which is to say that the farther away you are the less effect it will have but if the device was devastating electronics on earth, billions of miles away, it would have fried to a crisp anything within a mile or so (much less people in the transmission point).

No logic in this movie and the emotional aspect makes about the same amount of sense. A complete waste of talent like Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland (happily reunited after Space Cowboys).

The atmosphere of this movie is continuously dark, even when the scenery changes to the perpetually sunlit summer in Sweden. Dani's mental trauma is pretty well executed even though it's a little too contrived and ill explained (rather the events that lead to it)... but it still works and when Dani invites herself on the trip, there is the first bits of humor that are sprinkled throughout this movie, despite its' very dark nature...

The horrors depicted in the movie build relatively slowly, from the disturbing to the truly horrifying and are logically justified along the way (in at least a believable manner that requires less suspension of disbelief). They accumulate to the full-on realization of what is going on that is also foretold in some of the mid-film dialogue... Some of the highly disturbing scenes are actually broken up slightly by a twisted humor that the director actually drags out of the audience (which I saw first hand)... people laughing at aspects of the horror all together, as if orchestrated by the director.

The actors, who I barely knew except for Will Poulter, were great; having to endure pretty much the full spectrum of abuse that a bevy of movies could throw at them, much less a single film. I like that Josh (William Jackson Harper) is really the intellectual leader of this group and knows some of the things that will be happening.

I can't imagine this movie will be part of the Swedish tourism bureau's repertoire of midsommer things to do and see to entice tourists ... maybe I'll just wait for winter to visit Stockholm...

Others I've talked to have been of the same opinion, which is that this is a hard film to say "I enjoyed it" but I liked it a lot, much the same way you might like a slow burn hot sauce that you know will put you in pain but you have to taste it.

The ending of this movie was a great fantasy... imagine if the Manson family members were killed by a soon to be out of work stuntman, who beats Bruce Lee in a fight, his dog and his aging actor boss... wow, I mean why not just imagine that the Vietnam War never happened and JFK/RFK/King were never assassinated? The problem is, they were and as much as we wish we could erase those events, we can't. This movie had a lot of promise, to be a behind the scenes glance into the obvious psychological issues associated with stardom and maybe show the Manson murders from the point of view of a Hollywood insider. Instead we got this rambling attempt at nostalgia.

I read that Sharon Tate's sister gave this movie her blessing, and I understand why since the Manson family is portrayed as the dangerous monsters they are (although with probably a lot more wit than they possessed), the murderers get their full-on stuntman/pittie comeuppance, and, in the universe of the movie, her sister is still alive. This is the danger of a movie like this, where historical events are replaced by fantasy. The writer has a great responsibility to the people who are still around after and still hurting but also to the vast majority of the public now that doesn't remember or know about the Manson murders. I worry, that with the way things are now people will substitute in fantasy outcomes for the real thing, especially if they were never familiar with the events in the first place.

All that said, Dicaprio and Pitt are great. All the actors give spot on (if not all to brief) portrayals of their famous characters although I do take issue with how Bruce Lee is portrayed in terms of attitude but voice and mannerism is uncanny.

Many other writer/directors have taken huge liberties with portrayals of historical events, putting in purely fictional sequences and very "alternative" sequences. Usually though, the overall story remains intact ... or... like in Inglorious Basterds, whose ending is pure fantasy (yet it somehow worked better than this).

This movie had everything going for it. A stellar cast, a decent (albeit poorly executed premise) and a well tested "quirky" writer/director that played with breaking the fourth wall. Yet, none of it hangs together.

The zombies being stuck doing/wanting the same things they did/desired in life was a seldom used twist on the zombie, which could have been better used for that "social statement" that the movie kept trying to make. Other zombie movies made those statements in a more subtle, clever way. Return of the living dead, with its warnings about toxic waste presented with generous helping of comedy (send more paramedics!) or the original Night of the Living Dead with its subtle statement on racism and the hard look it took at the living at the end of the film.

Extremely disappointing.

First off, full disclosure, I met Diedrich Bader in London last summer and he made me promise I would watch the show! He is a really nice guy and he and his family were very decent to take a picture of him with me and my family.

I haven't yet watched an episode this season (2018) but last season I watched a couple. I found the premise to be excellent. Anyone who's lived in an "upscale" American bedroom community can probably relate. I wasn't as fixated on Katy MIxon's appearance as much as her character appears to be. While I'm not skinny, we all have our prejudices regarding overweight people but I think it's overemphasized in the writing. The other thing I noticed as well was that the jokes are pounded out with an almost rhythmic frequency. So the comedic timing that is really based on the actor's skill and experience is somewhat lost. Bader is a talented comedic actor and he seems squashed in this series, almost like he's rushing to get through the firehose like gush of jokes they write. I think more could be said with less words in the series. BTW, the jokes aren't bad but they come at such a quick pace it rings a little untrue. In my opinion it has a little bit more authentic a feel when you see the actor ponder a little bit before making the joke instead of having a breathless 50 joke back and forth exchange.

One other complaint, ABC doesn't seem to let Comcast play past seasons or episodes (without paying extra) so it's hard to jump on a series in the middle and just feel comfortable with all the characters and writing (assuming that maybe there are some episodes that don't follow the same styles).

I will have to read the book at some point... I love Russian/Soviet spy stories, my favorite being Gorky Park (which has a cameo in the opening scenes of the movie). The problem is this story doesn't live up to anything as good as Gorky Park the movie or "The Americans" TV series. I give the actors plenty of credit, even though Jennifer Lawerence's Russian accent is inconsistent (sometimes OK, sometimes completely absent... better than say Kevin Costner's English accent in Robin Hood). However, her emotional acting is excellent and makes up for the accent (plus, to be fair, some of the "Russians" in the movie have accents, some just sound like Brits pretending to be Russian).

Without giving away any spoilers, towards the end of the film, there can really only be two antagonists and everything goes exactly that way. The questions over loyalty are resolved so early that you almost don't trust what you're seeing because generally spy movies are "wheels within wheels".

Occasionally, the movie seems like it's trying to have a sense of humor but that's kind of executed inconsistently as well. It's not a chess game, more like a volleyball tournament. Once you get past the "shocking" parts of the film it's a little light on intrigue, plot, style, and intensity.

I did enjoy watching this film, I think the acting was good and the cinematography was good... it was a decent, pop-corn on your seat movie.

For the Star Wars nerds out there, it's unsatisfying and vapid. Why did Han and Lando become friends? I would assume they have more adventures together besides this. They don't seem that close at the end of the film. Solo's love interest is lacking nearly everything as well... big mystery that she's a slave of the primary antagonist. There is nothing to be discovered in this movie... we still don't even know why 12 parsecs because it's all just explained with a cavalier shallowness and ambiguity. These characters are very two dimensional, you're not really in love with them the way you were in Star Wars IV and it's not because of who is playing the characters.

I thought, given the fact that many young people might not remember Senator Kennedy and have no idea about the facts around the Chappaquiddick incident, that this film would be an opportunity to expose political noobs to the time in America where a politician really could get away with murder (well, at least involuntary manslaughter through negligence)... Don't get me wrong, the movie does a great job showing us the facts and I did enjoy that part of it as a historic political junky (on a trip to DC, I took a picture of myself pretending to scale a fence around the Watergate complex). That said, this movie nearly put me to sleep... it was almost too clinical, stuck too much to the facts with very little speculation, like maybe it should have been done in a more documentary style but of course, this has already been done a million times over with Chappaquiddick.

The acting is good, Clarke is very believable as Kennedy and Clancy Brown's job as Robert McNamara really stands out. I felt a little wanting though for Mary Jo... She was portrayed well and I guess believably but I still feel like I didn't get to know her. That was supposedly the promise of this movie but Mary Jo (just as in real life) was gone all too quickly. Maybe this could have been told by a disembodied Mary Jo who has some flashbacks to her past and the other Kennedy campaigns with the boiler room girls.

So let's just get this out of the way, the two stand outs in this movie are Emily Blunt and Allison Janey, whose characters are so deep that I found myself wanting to know them. I wanted to talk to Rachel, and try to walk her through her rough patches and I wanted to have a drink with Detective Riley and talk about her uncanny insights into human nature... or is that vice versa?

That said, when the movie would take you down one of these emotional paths, it would then switch directions because it was obvious to me that the director was trying to break you away from following obvious logical conclusions...that Tom was an abusive husband or that Rachel was actually a recovered alcoholic. I understand why Fincher used this technique (first off, it's his thing anyway, not to go in a linear temporal direction) as it did serve to reveal just enough to take you to the next level. This worked in the storyline but I feel like it cut my emotional ties to the characters. You don't really like some of the other characters until the last 20 minutes of the movie.

At the end of the day you've got a one-dimensional (dead) psychotic ex-husband and a couple of emotionally tortured women he left in his wake. This film almost becomes a "first world problems" type of movie instead of a statement about addiction and emotional abuse... the Housewives of Westchester County and their indiscretions.

Just as an aside, I used to occasionally take the Hudson line and I've known many of the places in this movie from commutes into NYC so there was kind of an appealing nostalgia to it on a personal level.

As big fan of both Ridley Scott and the Alien franchise this was such a huge disappointment of a film that it's hard to know where to begin.

First, while the film is visually stunning it's bereft of coherent story and plot. Its' link to the first Alien film is badly knitted into the plot and it's hard to believe.

Second, the characters are flat, not believable, unmotivated by any form or reasoning or even the outright greed of the Carter Burke character from Aliens.

Third, the "Engineer" race is really unbelievable as these brutish, unreasoning beasts who've created incredibly advanced bio-weapons. They don't look real, as they are all CGI and it shows.

BTW, in the original Alien movie, the creature in the navigator's chair was a skeleton and NOT some kind of space suit, it's ribs were clearly bone, not some kind of exoskeleton and its' trunk-like nose was also portrayed as a bony protuberance from its' skull and not some kind of wacky helmet with a tube.

I heard that this movie was going to be remade this year (2011)... This is yet another example that Hollywood has become bereft of original thoughts. About last night really only works as a period piece of the 1980's (I know it was adapted from a play in the 1970's but the decades weren't that different). If you put to modern a spin on it, it'll lose all it meaning and wind up a parody of itself. There are simply no modern taboo's left to explore in the film industry (unless we start getting into the realm of the illegal). I can't imagine a 2011 version of this story where we put a Snookie like character in for Debbie and another young, empty headed Hollywood body in for Danny. They won't be believable, they won't be likable and the movie will fall on it's face.

About last night is a great movie on many levels... It's nostalgic, it's sentimental, it's pretty funny and relatively realistic (especially in terms of the psychology of it's characters). It drags you through the mud but lets you feel clean at the end. Does it use clichéd 1980's sequences? Yes it does! You just have to wallow in them a little.

Many of you have said something along the lines of "hey, this is a cartoon it's supposed to be funny but not historically accurate". However, it is being taken seriously enough that school age children are seeing it in their social studies courses and are being asked to comment on it. It's funny in a dark sense of humor sort of way, but it's not being presented as strictly comedy. In addition, it is asking us to put two and two together and get six (e.g., the KKK and the NRA are linked). Everyone is well within their rights to state that America is not a perfect nation and has made mistakes in the past and even committed atrocities. However, it's not your right to pass this crap off as historical evidence of all the wrongs of this country.

I think like many people I just happened upon this movie one night when I couldn't sleep and there was nothing else on. From that point on I was hooked. It's such a combination of themes:

coming of age movie, cautionary morality tale, nostalgic romp through the 1970's, sexually compelling

that it's hard to pin down. As a parent it's hard to watch the death of Elijah Wood's character and the pain felt by his father (knowing that he's at least partially responsible for his death). It's also hard to watch the movie and not want to yell at the screen for the bad parenting you see (e.g., don't trust and verify where your kids are before you get laid by your neighbor).

The idea of a "key party" is now so quaint (and maybe I'm so old) that I'm not sure what the modern equivalent of it is. I was a child in the 70's and my parents to this day don't reveal all of their exploits (I've heard of a naked pool party once but they tell me they left).

One of the questions I have is, how did they duplicate the ice storm? Did they just wait for winter and spray everything with water and let it freeze? If anyone knows some of this trivia, I'd love to hear it.

There are some good points to this movie but they're few and far between. What I need to point out is that in 1992 Robert Downey Jr. was in his occasional throes of drug addiction and seemed to be unable to focus on anything for more than 10 minutes before dismissing it and having to move on. He attempted to show how republicans were greedy, crazy, and not very smart. What I love is that now, 16 years later, with the release of Iron Man RDJ opened a trading day on Wall Street, the same place he went during the making of this film and claimed it was just filled with stupid and greedy people. So which way have you gone Robert? Stupid, Greedy or both?

I've seen a lot of comments regarding the authenticity of this movie. I have to agree that it's not realistic given the state of the city today. If the movie had been set back in the early to mid eighties (as the main part of the action) it would have been much more realistic. At that time, Boston was a grittier city. There were many parts of the city that were dangerous after dark (like Chinatown or what used to be the "combat zone"). All these areas have been gentrified and it's kind of funny to see see them portrayed as dark and dangerous (about the only danger you face now is running into a drunken tourist).

Despite what I said above, the movie is excellent. Going down as one of my favorites, not because of the realism (lets face it, nearly all modern movies require you to suspend a whole lot of disbelief) but because of the tremendous performances of the cast and the overall story. If you can find fault in a movie based on the plot, acting, or some other attribute of the movie which causes it damage, that's fine. However, try to take the "realism" of the movie in relation to its setting, time period, or geographic authenticity with a grain of salt.

This movie meets my criteria for an outstanding movie:

1) Once it's on I can't stop watching it.

2) Despite limited effects/stunts it's still incredibly engaging, just based on the writing alone.

3) It's one of the few movies that can move me to tears (I don't want that to sound too girly because there's only two or three movies that can, Ghandi is one of the other ones).

Morgan Freeman is brilliant in it. His speech to Trip is a killer, no wonder he's played God.

Twice!

Here are a couple more comments that are being made due to the fact that they require 10 lines. This seems to be stupid requirement but I enjoy using the site. So, I don't consider this a "junk" comment because it is being written in protest to their 10 line requirement.

As stated in my summary, the acting in this movie is excellent, the visual feel it has as a period piece really hits the mark. However, and keep in mind I have not read the novel, I was not really all that convinced of the sincerity of the characters and it seems that they were made to play it down. I think this is entirely evident when Mille asks Kate if she loves Merton and she just kind of spits out "no" (and there were many such scenes). Now I know that Helena Bonham Carter is a much better actress than that so I assume it's just the director not wanting her to put too much pain in her voice or something but I just didn't feel that it worked. In the scene with Millie and Merton, when she is too sick to do anything and he breaks down and apologizes for lying to her about his feelings for Kate, there just isn't enough of a "come to Jesus" moment... I mean, he's fallen in love with Mille and he feels guilty about loving Kate and lying to Mille but it's too constrained a scene. I'm sorry, but I just didn't buy it and it really didn't move me that much.

I've always wondered why this film wasn't very well liked. Maybe it's not upbeat enough or grandiose enough in scope. Henry doesn't bring down his former law firm and he doesn't recover fully (and you don't know that he will). However, it's a testament to Harrison Ford's normally under utilized ability as an actor. He essentially plays two roles (bad Henry at first and recuperating good Henry after the shooting). Seeing Henry discover his family and, in the process, give up his former life as a lawyer is heartening and done in a realistic manner. This movie shows us how easy it is to lose track of what is really important in our lives and should impress on the viewer that it should NOT take a bullet in the head to make us realize that. I think it's main problem is that it does not use anymore than a quiet kind of power to make its' points but that, I think, is part of the appeal of the film.

I really like this series. Not only is it well written, full of complex moral trials and ethical subtleties, it's also very entertaining, funny and incredibly poignant in today's morally obfuscated world. The lessons that Aang learns pertain to all of us, young and old. To accomplish this and still create a show that is not sickeningly politically correct is truly an accomplishment. OK, if you want some none junk line commentary, here it is (and I'm not spell checking it either!) Are you kidding me? Ten lines of text in order post a comment on a cartoon? Please, editors or webmasters, don't cause this incredible site to jump the shark. Registered users of this site are typically well read, articulate people. If they can write a review that makes a statement about a movie (and/or TV show) that is useful than why have some arbitrary minimum length. This is not seventh grade English class with a three page minimum. Some of your readers may actually want to hear what someone has to say about something that may be a short and terse as "it sucks". Since you allow the users to rate the usefulness of the commentary, the least you could do is use that as your measure.

If this film came out today with Hillary Duff and the other modern brat packers I would probably take a big pass. One of the good things about this movie is that it was made during a time when political correctness was still in its' infancy and therefore you can have a character like Billy who is a missing father who runs out on his wife and kid but is still likable. Or a character like Jules who is a functioning alcoholic and impulsive liar. If the film came out today it would be a cautionary tale with them all ending up in therapy.

The characters in this film are a bit clichéd and two dimensional but I do identify with some of them. Especially Kevin, who pines away for a girl who is seriously dating someone who he knows is screwing around on her. I can't tell you how many times I was in the same or similar position where a girl that I was crazy about was dating a friend of mine who was a complete jerk.

Most embarrassing of all, I use this film as comfort food. Whenever I'm going through a transitory phase I play it and get the feeling that what ever I'm going through will come to an end and I'll be OK afterward.

Ughh, pathetic I know...

This movie is good on so many levels it's not funny...

At the shallowest levels it allowed our first glimpse of the funny yet romantic chemistry between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. The rest of the cast is amazing and funny as well. Abe Vigoda as the half Jewish, half Polynesian chieftain, Dan Hedaya as the mindless and oppressive boss, Lloyd Bridges and Robert Stack and of course Amanda Plummer in yet another totally bizarre roll as the enigmatic Dagmar.

If you look even deeper the movie shows us that our self actualization should not be based on some slavish work-a-day existence. The whole movie is one big metaphor. The volcano represents the "system" in which healthy, productive and basically good people are sacrificed in the name of keeping that status quo. Joe and DeDe show that with their love and faith in each other (and in a good set of steamer trunks) they survive being sacrificed to the system and are in turn rejected by it.

If you want to get scary deep you might even derive an anti-semitic message from the movie given that the Waponies are half Jewish and sacrifice people to the system (but offer up no sacrifices themselves). I hope this is not the true message of the movie since it's actually one of my favorites but that's just the way my mind works.