Reviews

1) To be in the cast, you had to have an asymmetrical face.

2) The computer props were originally used in "Desk Set."

3) When the crotch in the guy's jeans split wide open, it was barely noticeable. Really.

4) Anna Nichole's son had no idea he was being used as an homage to "The Shining".

5) Nobody else involved knew that either.

6) International Male sales exploded when this movie was released.

7) Somebody LOVED high school French class.

FYI - Comcast info gave this movie 2 stars. I would love to find out what exactly warranted that extra star. And if anybody has any information on the behind the scenes story of this meisterwerke, please let me know.

Four episodes into the first season and "A.U.S.A" is having the funniest first season (in my opinion) since "Cheers" debuted all the way back in 1982. I hope the cast and crew are able to keep up the hi/low combination humour for the rest of the season - if the show even HAS a full season. Apparently "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" is just TOO tempting in that time slot for the mediocre masses to even consider changing over to a show with an actual talented WRITING STAFF. Oh well. Hopefully, like 'Cheers" (which was dead last in the ratings for its entire first season) and "Seinfeld" (which also took a very long time to catch on), somebody at the network will take this show under a wing and let it cultivate popularity. But more than likely, it'll simply be cancelled before it even has a chance.

I know it's stupid to love an entire movie for just two lines. (Actually, there are a hundred good lines, but these are my two favorites.) When Alfrie Woodard shows Bill Murray the newspaper with the picture of the old lady who died from watching an ad on his network and he says : "Who's she? She's pretty!" I practically poop my pants every time. And when Carol Kane, as the Ghost of Christmas Present, says to him "Don't vex me Frank or I will fix your mouth so it won't hold soup!" I mean - C'MON...! CLASSIC!

How can ANYBODY think this movie is dated? I just watched it for the first time in years - and it's even MORE appropriate for these times.

A male yuppie type-A doesn't get the "right" job and so convinces his wife to dump her job too so that they can "touch Indians" and "find themselves" - with the help of a gigantic motorhome and a nest egg of 100-odd thousand dollars. And of course the SECOND that things don't work out, they give in and go back their former yuppie lives. YES, the movie is short (blissfully short - 91 minutes of pure comic genius) but the sudden conclusion and mad dash across the country is the whole point...! It couldn't have ended any other way!

The premise alone is wonderful enough, but throw in the fabulous comic timing of both Brooks and Julie Haggerty, great supporting performances, impressive directing from Brooks and a near-perfect screenplay, and I believe you have what ya might call... a GREAT FILM!

My vote for funniest line? Tie between "Touch that keno card and I will kill you... I will kill you" and "You couldn't change your life on a hundred thousand dollars?"

Mind-bogglingly, wonderfully, transplendantly HORRID. More fun than "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (in fact, me and half dozen friends are watching and singing along as I type this) and even more campy than "Showgirls." And that's saying ALOT. All fans of goodbad movies should try and get a copy, any copy, on ebay - even a 10th generation VHS of its terrible not-very-pan-and-scan print is worth watching!

Koyaanisqatsi has been OOP for years, even on video, until yesterday when FINALLY it was released on DVD. After checking four different stores, I finally found one that bothered to have a copy for sale on the release day, so I snapped it up and watched it in the dead of night.

First, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in the print quality of the DVD version - quite a few scenes show evident wear and tear on the print used. I have to keep reminding myself though, that this movie was made TWENTY years ago... the negative and master prints have certainly had quite an adventure during the past 2 decades. (If ever there was a perfect argument for film protection and preservation, Koyaanisqatsi is IT.)

I'm also wondering about the aspect ratio. It seems incorrect at 1.85:1 - I could've sworn I've seen a version that was 2.35:1, but since it's been so long since I've actually seen the film, perhaps I'm mistaken. If however, this is not the full aspect ratio, then that's a ridiculous choice by the DVD makers - I mean, fans of a movie like this are the LAST people on earth who would be "scared off" by wide letterboxing, something the studios still seem to think consumers are terrified of.

Ok, so how about the movie itself? Koyaanisqatsi came out the year I graduated from high school, and it was an extreme influence on me (and others - it's become quite legendary and has been name checked countless times everywhere from MST3K to The Simpsons). But after not seeing it for well over 10 years, how did it affect me last night?

Hmm. Maybe for the very reason it's become such an icon, it was just a bit of a letdown. On a superficial level, I am AMAZED at how much has changed in just 20 years. Many things in the film are downright quaint now - the cars, the hairdos, the fashions, the huge old mainframe computers, Ms Pac-Man, billboard ads for Betamax players! And MAN, Times Square really was totally squalorous, wasn't it!?

On a deeper level, one of the inadvertent profundities of Koyaanisqatsi is that, in watching it now, the relentless march of time is all too apparent. When compared to the mountains of Arizona or the layers of the Grand Canyon, everything we do as a civilization seems thoroughly disposable. 5000 years - big whoop.

One thing that hasn't changed is our relentless consumption of the planet's natural resources, and that's only accelerated since the early 80's. We were all well aware of the risks we were taking with the environment back then and we knew we had some difficult choices to make. The decision of the majority since 1983? Buy a 12 mpg SUV, build a McMansion and participate in adding another billion people to the world's population. Good going.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox and back on the subject at hand :-) Koyaanisqatsi is still quite marvelous to behold - one thing that I've built an appreciation for over the years is how important EDITING is, and Koyaanisqatsi is BRILLIANTLY edited. And last but certainly not least is the absolutely astonishing music by Philip Glass - it can stand alone from the film as a separate work of art. "The Grid" portion of the soundtrack is, in my mind, one of the towering achievements of 20th century music. (I can highly recommend the 1998 recording of the soundtrack which is even better than the version made for the film.)

... if you want to post a review of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and you're thinking of typing something in the realm of "The first 40 minutes were just a bunch of monkeys..." or " this movie is so boring..." please don't. A well thought out commentary of the movie is welcome (everyone is entitled to their own opinion) but if your criticism amounts to nothing more than trite thought-bubbles of inconsequence, please do imdb a favor and stop wasting the bandwidth.

I have seen this film about a dozen times in my life. Each time I see something new that makes me appreciate the genius of everyone who participated in its making.

Most recently I had the thrilling experience of seeing "2001: A Space Odyssey" at the Uptown Theater in Washington DC - in full Cinerama. During the famous waltzing docking sequence, it was like being in space and seeing the space station with my own eyes. It literally made me vertiginous. The special effects in "2001" were created 34 years ago by craftsmen who filmed small physical models in a studio in England and actually made them look like gigantic objects in space. I will take that over lifeless CGI any day.

Being able to see the tiny details in every frame was the best part of viewing the Cinerama print. After the scene where a primitive man uses a bone to kill another human (the first murder with a weapon?), he tosses the bone into the air, and a magnificent jump cut turns the bone into a satellite floating above the Earth. Brilliant enough. But this time, I noticed that the satellite has the star symbol of Communist China. Other satellites are shown, each with its own national symbol. They're not just satellites - they're orbiting WEAPONS.

So basically, in the span of about 10 seconds of film, Kubrick has covered 3 million years of evolution. AND pointed out that we're still just animals trying to kill one another.

This movie is NOT boring.

....into a program more concerned with bad puns and PRODUCT PLACEMENT than with witty dialogue and edginess.

Just finished watching the 8/11 episode: BARNES & NOBLE - WEIGHT WATCHERS - KRISPY KREME - AOL - and, in the most stunningly blatant scene apparently created only for its advertising potential, Amazon.com.

I guess until AOL's market cap gets back above 100 billion, we'll have more of this to look forward to. Great.

Don't try to "figure it out." It's Lynch. Just watch. It's so much better the second time, it's like you've taken a mini-vacation away normal time and space. Utterly brilliant. David Lynch, thank you. And not just for Mulholland Drive, for your entire oeuvre.

I'm going to buy the DVD TODAY! I saw it on Bravo last night, and stopped watching before the ending. (The commercial breaks were irritating.) It's my favorite kind of movie: epic in scale, intertwining story lines... GORGEOUS cinematography.

I went to see "Crossroads" in the hopes that it would be a "so bad it's good" movie, like "Showgirls," "Coyote Ugly" or "Glitter." It's not. It's just depressing. There is only one reason this movie was made: to drain the pockets of clueless 12 year old girls. I left after about 20 minutes.

Interested in learning everything you need to know about film acting in just over 2 hours? Then observe the glorious Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life." It's all there. Just keep watching his eyes. Ask any actor and he/she will tell you that the secret to good acting isn't what you do when you're reciting lines - it's what you do when you're NOT saying anything. Stewart was the MASTER. Proof? Take a look at the scene towards the end when George turns away from talking to his mother (who in Clarence's world does not recognize him) on the porch of Ma Bailey's Boarding House... oh my GOD, the way he looks into and THROUGH the camera, the film, the walls of the studio, across time and straight into your soul! How did he do it? And to think he never won an Oscar - shows what a sham that whole concept is.

So I watched it again for the billionth time this past holiday (NBC actually seems PROUD of the fact that they have a lock on the TV rights and yet feel no pressure to perhaps NOT cram as many commercials as possible into a masterpiece) and a funny thought occurred to me: wouldn't it have made more sense for Clarence to simply tell George WHAT HAPPENED TO THE $8,000 ?!? :-)

... and PLEASE don't accuse me of having "no imagination." I have alot of imagination. I worship Kubrick, ALL of Kubrick, and have studied "2001" almost frame by frame. I was a HUGE champion of "Blade Runner" when it was getting terrible reviews upon original release. But I know a bad movie when I see one - and this one is quite bad.

There is a fine line between "imaginative" and "silly." The ending of "Mission to Mars" was silly (I laughed) and A.I. has an ending ten times longer and three times worse. Actually there are THREE distinct endings to A.I. and only one (the first) would've worked. I'd like to think that Kubrick would've known to stop it there.

AND WHAT IS UP with the Spielberg/Lucas "Every Movie Must Have an Adorable Something Or Another In It" school of thought!? That damn Teddy - why not just put a freakin' Ewok in the movie? And the Robin Williams-voiced Dr. Know was UNFORGIVABLE, as awful as the two headed announcer in "Phantom Menace" ever was.

The performances by Osment and Law were excellent. The art direction was stunning, especially Rouge City, the Moon Balloon, and the flooded NYC. I commend the movie on those elements.

Had it ended sooner (and better), "A.I." might have been a deeply flawed masterpiece a la "Blade Runner". But unfortunately, it's just not there.

I had no idea that Gillian Anderson was such a powerful actress. Her final scene with Eric Stoltz was riveting, proof that she deserves respect among the greatest of today's actresses. It's a crime that she wasn't nominated for an Oscar. Although this film was made on a smallish budget, director Davies compensates with some wonderful touches, like the long, gorgeous transition between rainy New York and the yacht sailing on the sunny Mediterranean. Breathtaking.