Pharoiste

I recently remembered seeing this featured between films on HBO in its early days (late Seventies to early Eighties), when all they had to fill the space between feature films was either previews of other films or "shorts" such as this one. After doing some searches on it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has an IMDb entry. I didn't think IMDb included films this short.

The Vicious Cycles are a motorcycle gang. Or, at least, they sort of are: the gang members in this film don't actually ride motorcycles. Rather, they stand in a pose as if they were on motorcycles, then "ride down the road" using stop motion photography. Along the way, they meet a cute blonde trying to hitch a ride and also encounter a couple of other cycling clubs that get around the same way the Vicious Cycles do, including a group of meek scooter riders called the Mild Ones. Antics include the leader of the Vicious Cycles challenging the leader of the Mild Ones to a drag race -- the leader of the Mild Ones declines, so the Vicious Cycles "run them off the road" and cause a big crash.

The film features no dialogue. Instead, the story is communicated entirely thru facial expressions and gestures (for example, the Vicious Cycle gang leader challenges the leader of the Mild Ones to a race by poking the other guy in the nose, then pointing at himself, then pointing down the road toward the red light where the cute blonde stands ready to give the signal to start). This works better than actual lines would have and makes the whole thing quite a bit funnier than it would have been otherwise.

I'm pleased to be the first to be able to review and recommend "Vicious Cycles". It's easy to find online. Give it a look... you'll be glad you did.

Three middle-class women, all of whom are struggling financially for various reasons, decide to solve their problems by knocking over a fund-raising event at the local shopping mall. They "psych themselves up" by committing some small stickups and so forth at first, then they put the big plan in place -- and, of course, when the big day arrives, everything goes awry. Moderately entertaining, though not particularly noteworthy apart from some interesting casting notes, such as Dabney Coleman as an unassuming nice guy (something you don't see very often), Jessica Lange in a comedic role (ditto) and Jane Curtin in her first feature film, working alongside Susan Saint James, a partnership that would later be reprised in the successful sitcom "Kate & Allie".

This is the kind of film that, if you're of a particular age, you probably saw in grade school or junior high on cable TV when you were a kid, and now that it's popping up again on broadcast TV on a Sunday afternoon when you don't really have much else to do, you think to yourself, "Oh, hey, yeah, I remember that movie -- seeing that again might be kind of fun." And it is.

It's also quite watchable if you've never seen it before. Just don't expect to come away feeling as though your life has been changed, as it usually is with truly great comedies from that era (such as 1981's "Arthur").

The CSI shows almost always deliver, and deliver well. Unfortunately, this ep is one of the few "flops" -- or maybe I've just seen so many police procedurals that I'm starting to recognize patterns, I don't know. In any event, as the other commenter has noted, the identity of the murderer is painfully obvious, so much so that the character had been on screen for literally less than thirty seconds before I pointed my finger and said, "That's the one." That detracts from the enjoyment of the episode, for more reasons than one. Apart from the fact that there's no mystery left for the viewer to solve, it also makes the detectives look incredibly stupid for missing something so obvious, and stupid detectives are never a good thing to have in a police procedural.

As for the sensationalistic "twist" near the end, I can't say too much about it without venturing into spoilers, of course, but in my opinion, it added nothing to the episode and should have been excluded. "Shockers" are best used only when they serve a useful purpose, and no such purpose was served here.

CSI: NY is an excellent show, but fans would do well to skip this ep. After all, there are so many others that are worth your while.

It's pretty rare for me to give a ten-star rating, and rarer still for me to feel compelled to write a review for an episode of a television series, but this episode was so good that I was driven to do both.

The writing, while high-caliber as usual, is no better (or worse) than most other eps of "Cold Case", and the usual "trademarks" are here as well. However, with this particular episode, those trademarks are especially well done. For example, the use of two actors (one older for the present, one younger for the past) is here as it always is, but the resemblance between the two actors is better than usual, giving a better sense of realism and continuity between 1981 and 2008. Not a minor casting accomplishment, especially with a weekly show.

Another area that's unusually outstanding is the choice of music. Background music in the flashbacks to the past is standard for each ep of "Cold Case", of course, but the selection of music in this ep is far more effective than usual. Most of the time, the background music in the flashbacks simply helps to set the mood and convey a feeling of the time period of the flashback. There's nothing wrong with that, of course -- far from it, it's an excellent creative use of music -- but in this ep, the music does all that and more: it actually enhances the feeling of the scene being recalled, especially for those of us old enough to remember the music of that period.

The flashback to the victim selling her first car, for example, uses "Brass in Pocket" by the Pretenders as its background music. The victim (an attractive woman) engages the prospective used car buyer in conversation, trying to get a "feel" for him and sell him the car, and as she leads him over to the car she wants to try to sell him, the music wells up: "I'm gonna use my arms... I'm gonna use my legs... I'm gonna use my style... I'm gonna use my sexy..." while the camera focuses on her using her seductive walk to lure the buyer into a purchase, and the buyer (played by an actor who definitely knows what he's doing) tries not to reveal that he's attracted to the victim and does a mostly, but not entirely, good job of it. If you remember watching the music video for this song on MTV back then, the effect is enhanced all the more.

Another excellent choice of music is the track played at the end of the episode, when we have the usual slow-motion montage of the killer being led away, along with the recap of all the other witnesses and suspects that the detectives have spoken to. For this ep, the music played during the ending montage is Journey's "Wonder Who's Cryin' Now", which musically captures the "feel" of the moment in a way that probably no other song from that period could.

I like television, as do you in all likelihood if you're reading this review, but this is one of the very few television episodes -- of any genre, from any time period -- that I consider so incredibly well-done that I'd actually want to own it, rather than (for example) just renting it on DVD whenever the fancy struck me. A job well-done by all involved in the production. They should be proud.

I rented the original and the remake at the same time specifically for comparison purposes. The original was good (of course), and the remake is reasonably serviceable, but that's largely because the remake is a remake in the literal sense of the term.

What the filmmakers didn't "get" here is that the term "remake" is something of a misnomer. The point of a "remake" isn't actually to make the film again, but to re-imagine it. "The Omen" is a remake in that, as others have pointed out, it follows the original film so closely that it actually does make the film again, the differences from the original being essentially inconsequential (e.g., in Kate Thorn's falling scene, Damien rides a scooter instead of a tricycle, and the falling object is a potted plant instead of a fishbowl). Even at that, some of the changes don't work -- compare the original Damien Thorn's attitude and behavior toward the dog in the house to the remade Damien Thorn's, for example, and the complete elimination of Father Brennan's death scene in the remake.

In addition, the casting choices are a bit iffy. Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles are not bad actors, but casting younger actors in the roles of the Thorns doesn't work as well as Gregory Peck and Lee Remick did. That is, of course, largely because of changing business demands by Hollywood, but it still detracts from the effectiveness of the film. A more mature male lead, in particular, would have made the film much more effective, as Peck did in the original. Pete Postlethwaite, for example, an excellent though underrated actor, would probably have been better cast as Robert Thorn rather than in the minor role of Father Brennan.

I'm not sorry I watched the film, because it was actually very educational for me in learning more about film criticism. I just wish that the lessons I learned had been more positive rather than negative.

A convoluted story line, tired vampire clichés, dreadful acting, idiotic dialog, and plot holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through, just to name the things I can think of off the top of my head, all combine to make this one of the most horrible films ever made. Even most of the violence in the film comes across as gratuitous, as does the sex scene -- and coming from me, that's definitely saying something. "Bloodrayne" gets a two from me rather than a one only because it does have very well-done sets, costumes, and some nice outdoor visuals. I rented this from Netflix only because I wanted to see whether it really was as awful as everyone says it is. It is. Ugh. Two hours of my life I'll never get back.

I recently remembered viewing this short film in a science class when I was in junior high, around 1980 or so, and I did a few searches on it. Unsurprisingly, I found very little, since it's very obscure (as is evidenced by the lack of votes and comments here).

And that's a shame, because "Ark" is an excellent film. Set in a near-future Earth where most species are extinct and humans must wear gas masks outdoors because the atmosphere is too polluted to breathe, one man (never named in the film) finds a pond with some small breath of life left in it, builds a greenhouse around it, and delicately but diligently tries to bring it back to life. For a film that's this short, I can't say much more about the plot without starting to get into spoilers, so I'll leave the plot outline at that.

The imagery and atmosphere of the film are very powerful and effective, but the film's relentlessness does make it difficult to watch because its vision, apart from the metaphorical "ark", is very dystopian. Everyone outside wears gas masks and drab clothing, making them appear more like drones than human beings. The sky is always overcast, and the world is colorless, lifeless, dirty, and bleak. The viewer gets a real feeling of actually being in a world that's been utterly ruined by man's short-sightedness. (The only relief from all of that is the scenes in the pond, with the alga and small fauna and the man gently tending to them -- a sharp contrast to the bleakness of the rest of the planet.) The overall impact on the viewer is pretty "heavy", but then, that's the director's whole point -- and that kind of highly effective emotional impact is one of the hallmarks of a very well-made film.

Very, very difficult to find, but if you can manage to, or if you hear of it playing anywhere, do see it. And let me know as well, since I'd like to see it again, too.

I'm pleased to be the first to be able to offer IMDb readers some feedback on this excellently-crafted short.