Reviews

A lot has been said here. But almost none of it is about Sam's Song, and even if it is, it often isn't rue.

Sam's Song is not unfinished. At least, I saw a movie that had opening credits, closing credits, and the rest made sense as well. And Sam's Song is NOT, I REPEAT: NOT "The Swap". Even though I saw the movie on a DVD which promoted it as "The Swap", and even if the cover said it would be about a porn director being killed: it isn't.

It's a fairly simple love story told in an uncommon way. Not much really happens, but that doesn't stop you from being intrigued. The film is not very much concerned about plot, but more about atmosphere and the characters. The film shows us four characters which are all unpredictable and yet very recognizable, maybe just because they are unpredictable and are not Hollywoodlike at all. The fact that De Niro plays a wannabe director hardly plays any part in this movie. It's a pleasant story about two couples: one that just met en one that has been together for years, seemingly destined to live happily ever after.

The film is intriguing because of the unpredictable dialogs, the weird pace, the uncommon silences and, of course, because it's a very honest en typical 60's/70's film, a time document. The director en the editor were clearly not untalented. De Niro plays very differently from his well known parts, but I would call it a different style, not per se worse.

The ending is a bit abrupt and feels weak. It denies the title "Sam's Song". Sam (De Niro) is the protagonist but the movie, in the end, is about the other three characters. That's where the main weakness lays: Sam is the main character, and he is intriguing (De Niro's talent already showing?) but in the end, he is unimportant.

Most votes and comments here are about "The Swap", a version with extra material which doesn't resemble Sam's Song in the slightest anymore. Don't be fooled. Even though that's hard: Sam's Song is sold as The Swap and vice versa. Sam's Song itself is definitely worth to be seen even if it's far from a master piece. 6.5 out of 10

As this films begins, the overly melodramatic music predicts exactly what kind of movie this is going to be. It is a story that takes itself much too seriously, a film that should have been made forty years ago to have the impact that makers intended. The story is predictable and lacks Hitchcock's basic rule : The viewer always has to ask himself "what happens next?". If you miss the second half of the movie, you haven't missed a thing: it's just more of the same in a slow pace and an ever increasing melodramatic tone, without variations.

Both main characters and story have a certain amount of depth, but not so much tpo prevent them from seeming simple and flat. This is probably due to the fact that neither characters nor story contain any surprising elements. The characters are too obviously formed too fit the story, instead of the other way around. For instance, the mother. She has children because she needs to have a family. But she has no feelings whatsoever for them in the movie, which is highly unlikable for the character portrayed, who is clearly a very emotional character, even though captured in a straitjacket of lifestyle and biased environment. The character of Raymond Deagan is too perfect and politically correct to be believable. This may have been a conscious choice, the way the role was acted it seemed like the character was from another movie and another era entirely. The character of the father is the most interesting, yet he is only there to move the story (slowly) forward. He deserves his own storyline.

So, the story sucks; the movie itself has some really good and subtle moments, in the first half, that is. The acting is decent, the art direction is superb, the directing is fine, although the pace is too slow. There are many subtleties and references I probably am not aware of in this movie. Yet for me, if the story sucks, the movie sucks. 5/10.

I envy all people whose world changed when they saw this movie. I envy them big time. I fell asleep when I saw it, and I think this is the first and only movie that ever succeeded in doing that. There goes my reputation as an intellectual. I cannot enjoy the merits of the genius Godard, because the story gets in the way. What story? No story. Just a repetition of the same all over again, ad infinitum. I like story. I like development, story development, character development. I'm sorry. I know that's banal. This film is just too subtle and too storyless for me. I guess I'll have to stick to my favorite boring story containing movies like Amarcord or Playtime. Sigh. What do they see what I don't see and that keeps them awake? I'm seriously jealous.

This film is a masterpiece. Mamet has outdone himself. The acting is brilliant. A historical movie about a court case without going into the court itself. Mamet has brilliantly reversed the sacred movie law "don't tell them, show them" into "don't show them, tell them". And this takes place in early 20th century Engand, a place and time where people show no emotions. This results into much emotionless talking - on the surface. The script and the acting create so much tension and emotions that I have only one word for it: brilliant. I have always been fascinated by Mamet, but never been quite satisfacted by his movies. This is the first time I realize he is truly a genious.

This amazing comedy mocks all film rules, giving you hardly any opportunity to predict what comes next. This wedding is a wodka-loaden, Russian, chaotic party with a bride worth alone to watch the film for, amazing scenes (like in the orphanage), with extreme characters who never become unreal. It's very warm, very funny, sometimes even scary although nothing really extreme happens. Weird things happen, though. The movie starts with Tanya, a supermodel, returning to her home village from Moscow, looking for a shy mineworker she was in love with when she was 14, and making him a proposal: flip a coin, heads is marrying, tails is not marrying. Later on, you'll understand why. You'll love this film if you can enjoy movies that are not by-the-book.

A very clever screenplay: theologically, psychologically, historically and dramatically almost perfect. You can look at the story of Joan of Arc in all these four ways and Besson did it all four ways. And made a movie that satisfies you and makes you wonder, no matter which of the four is your favorite.

This film was a big surprise for me since it had more depth than I could hope for, more energy than action, more drama than spectacle (although it didn't exactly lack spectacle!) Dustin Hoffman and Mila Jovovich give brilliant performances. I rate this movie 9 out of 10.

Don't see this film on TV. This film was shot on 70 mm and you should see it in the cinema on a LARGE screen. I've seen the film in the cinema first, it was brilliant. Later I saw it on TV, it was mediocre the most. Then I saw it in the cinema again, and again it was brilliant. Why? The quality of this film is in the small details. In some scenes, you just don't know where to look because so much is happening at once. On TV, all these details get lost. DVD won't help! A TV just has way too few pixels! This film relies not on story (there hardly is one), but on inventive and imaginative images. Watch the 70 mm version in the cinema, and enjoy the biggest film this genius ever made, with sometimes subtle, sometime hilarious humor!!!

Juliet is 13. Almost 14. She is not, as in all other portrayals, a young adolescent. She is a _child_. A child, in an adult body, with lots of hormones going around.

This is the only film that captures this right. Juliet is a child, captured in her family, the ethics and social rules of her times, and her own puberty. When she cries, you hear a little child crying. It is the same girl that cannot control her passions for her loved one. And these passions are not only, simple, pure, holy love. No sir. The girl is 13, Romeo is not much older. We're talking of the strongest puppy-love in history, together with pure, uncontrolled and undirected teenager lust. Did not Shakespeare write that Romeo's flaming and endless love flipped within a second from one young girl (Rosalina) to another (Juliet)? He understood teenager love a lot better than most directors of this play do!

Not to say that, in this film, their love isn't _real_. Man, I've never seen so much chemistry on the screen! Forget Danes and diCaprio. They are much better actors but they lose this one. By miles. Millions of miles. But Hussey and Whiting's love is not just that. It is not just chemistry. Not plain "love", this "pure thing" where everybody seems to think R&J is about. Forget it! It is teenage confusion, depression, rebellion, it is being a child and an adult at the same time, it is something they do not understand, it is clumsiness, hardly uncontrollable lust, it is very well possible that this love would turn into pure hatred if it had had some time to develop ... it is, simply said, the most complex and simple thing at the same time. And it's all there, in the portrayal of these two very young actors in the amazing direction by Zeffirelli. (Of whom I heard that he roamed the planet to find the actors he needed.)

Maybe the best advertisement is that I personally was not attracted to either one of the lovers. Which is usually the easiest way to make a screen-love convincing - and often the only way.

This films is, in spite of its gorgeous but convincing settings, brilliant camera work and beautiful (though dated) costumes and art-direction, very imperfect in many small ways. Olivia Hussey fake whines once too often. There are strange holes in Shakespeare's text. The end of the famous Mab monologue is too melodramatic. But all this helps to make you realize how _real_ this all feels. How every inch of your body tenses with emotion. If everything had been perfect, it would have been slick and not half as moving.

Take, for example, the scene in the tomb. In Romeo + Juliet (1996), they use a million candles. Nice effect. People remember that. It is not half the impact that the dead bodies, in different states of decay, simple, gruesome and beautiful, in this film have. They made a good decision by leaving out the fight between Romeo and Paris in the tomb (a very common cut, by the way) and focus on the deadly love scene between the dead only. Zeffirelli did the most perfect job by focusing only on what Romeo and Juliet is all about: love. What a masterpiece.

For never was there more beauty in woe

Than in this version of Juliet, and her Romeo.

I can't believe so many people fall for the cheap, sentimental effects that are used in this film. Imagine how the script was written. "OK, how are we going to raise some sympathy for this kid." "why, do we need to raise sympathy?" "For chrissake, he's a BALLET DANCER". "OK, what will we do, usual stuff?" "Yeah, dead mother, poor family" "Mines closing down?" "Hasn't that been done too often?" "Who cares?" "You're right. And let's put a demented grandma in there." "Good, good. Make sure the boy has to take care for her constantly." "We can't, he has to dance constantly." "The audience won't notice." "By the way, has anyone seen the ambition-blocked-by-parents-template anywhere?" "Yeah, I threw it out, it was worn-out too much. It must be somewhere here in the trash... here it is." "Thanks."

However, the script being written with a sledgehammer, the boy's dancing is brilliant, the girl is cute and the acting is quite nice.

The funny thing is that I saw the Japanese film Shall we dansu? (dansu dance in Japanese) (http://us.imdb.com/Details?0117615) the day after on video. It's actually almost the same story, only the straightforward, poor, miners' boy is a shy, reasonable successful, Japanese businessman and it's not about ballet, but about ballroom dancing. I don't give a damn about ballroom, nor about shy Japanese businessmen, and I do like modern ballet, and England, however, the story of Shall we dansu? wins in originality, subtlety, humor and plain enjoyment. Although this gem of a film is older, it seemed to me the writers had seen "Billy Elliot" and declared: We can do this thing as well - but good. They actually knew all about the dance and gave their knowledge brilliant uses in the plot. You can't say that of Billy Elliot.

I absolutely fail to see what is funny in this film. The humor seems to be destined for corpses. It's slow. The story is too simple to be true. The characters do not raise much sympathy, a few non-important characters aside. Nothing surprising happens. What did the writers of this script think? "Oooo funny! Let's make some old lady's high on pot! Let's make them.... giggle! Let's make them... behave like little children!! Oooo, yes, that's absolutely brilliant and original!"

This film has irritated me most from all the films I've seen in the last five years.

This film is not brilliant. Shakespeare would turn in his grave. But I couldn't help falling in love with Kate, the Shakespeare-Shrew-teenage-ripoff and wishing I was fifteen years younger again for the first time in my life. I love this film.

This film succeeds where Billy Elliot fails. It's surprising to see that the two films have the same starting-point, however, Shall we Dansu uses surprisingly little sentimental effects and integrates the dancing into the plot wonderfully. (Billy Elliot could have been about cello-playing as well.)

The best part of the film is that you cannot really remember afterwards WHY you liked it so much. There are no separate scenes that will seduce you to think this will be a great movie. It's a typical example of the whole being MUCH more than the parts.

OK. The movie starts all right. The acting is good. But my god, what a sentimental crap is this story! It seems to me the writers only thought of jerking as much tears as possible. By making the big feller soooooo innocent. And the bad guy soooooo bad. And they leave no stone unturned to tear your tears out, because when an audience weeps, the film must be good.

Well, it isn't. YES, I wept. But it didn't feel good. Because it was SO cheap. When you hit me with a hammer on my toe, I weep as well. And this film was about as subtle as that. And so I felt emotionally raped by this movie. I actually did.

PLEASE see the Shawshank redemption instead...

Contrary to common believes I believe this one to be the best of the three - and I saw the three of them within three days. Best of it was, that it left some false hints that made you wrongly predict the end of the film. Without explaining everything - there is some puzzling to be done if you want to convince yourself everything fits. And best of all, it was good fun.

This is probably the most empty, pretentious film you'll ever see. The problem is that you know what's going on within 10 minutes but Kruishoop herself doesn't. So she goes on and on and on ... with phoney "intellectual" (hah-hah) dialogues, no plot to speak of, an absolutely hilarious direction (especially the actors direction), a deadly boring atmosphere etc.

Yes, this film can be very enjoyable, in the same way that "Plan 9 of outer space" was. However, plan 9 was less pretentious.

In the incredible series of _really_good_ movies that were made in 1999, Magnolia is without doubt the most stunning, surprising and daring of them all. This is an unique combination of extreme originality with extreme craftsmanship. In other words: this film is not only a must-see, a humorous series of weird but amazing stories, it's also plain Art. People who do not like this film have lost their ability to be open to new things and human stories.

If you're having trouble getting over a lost love, you're very probable to find this the most beautiful film you ever saw. I did, when I saw it first... and so did my ex....

Juliet Stevenson proves (again) to be a brilliant actress. The English Patient (Minghella's greatest hit until now) hasn't quite got the fantasy, intimacy and recognizability that his debut has. I can only say: I loved every minute of it and enjoyed it intensely. Also the fifth time I saw it. The most original love-story I've probably ever seen.