Reviews

a completely different kind of a show, of course, though greg house sort of reminds me of the adam the eccentric chef from northern exposure. i have a twisted fascination for sarcastic, cynical, insulting humour. it may be wrong, but it's hilarious.

i don't watch this show to look up medical facts and fiction. i actually started watching because of hugh laurie, later i've created a fondness for the rest of the cast as well. there are no annoying characters in my opinion.

the show is well written of course, the dialogue is at times breathtakingly witty, and i like the look of the hospital as well. finally a hospital that doesn't look like it was waiting for a bulldozer.

thanks for the show!

corbucci's amazing, simply brilliant western grabbed right from the very first frames. the first thing i noticed was the snow, and what a great, different atmosphere it could bring to a western. secondly, the camera work was excellent. the images were clear and bright, and later on in the movie even technically and artistically marvelous. the problem with this sort of films has always been funding, but the crew of il grande silenzio was apparently just that damn good. the satisfaction of the viewer is guaranteed, when the already familiar theme song of master ennio morricone begins, and shines together with the sun over the arctic desert.

the characters are very well thought out, and developed through out the film, and also played by fantastic actors. klaus kinski is outstanding in his role. i was a bit disappointed with the Italian dub, it's strange to be watching an Italian film and still having to bare a dub track. the plot is outstanding for this sort of picture, there are not simply two factions the good guy and the bad guy, but actually with their own agendas...let's see...1, 2, 3, 4, 5 factions. the ending is powerful, for sure, but for me, personally, irrelevant. i would have enjoyed to movie with or without it...i could see the rare, realistic and humane sides of the characters much earlier in the movie.

after all the superlatives, it's difficult to find a word to describe the atmosphere of the film in one word. in it's decadence it resembles post-apocalyptic sci-fi books and films. you have to see this. as soon as possible. looking at the number of votes here at IMDb it certainly deserves more attention. bravo.

super inframan the cult movie. of course things like this always find their own, but there was not much for me to enjoy in this one. i was watching old shawscope trash with few redeeming qualities. it would take a while to list everything that was lousy about it, all the clumsy errors, silly costumes, settings, lack of plot...and so on. i didn't find it all very humorous either. the monsters were indeed humorous, and the robots near the end were actually quite imaginative, but the dull scenes between the fights, the awful noise throughout the movie and the utter lack of any deeper meaning put me off. call me a tired dry grown-up, but i might have liked this when i was eight.

from the very first frame of this 'movie' you can see you're watching some thing extraordinary. the introduction is so over the top you don't know if to laugh or cry. it's like a parody of the discovery channel, if you will.

on with the show. the lights turn on, the camera dives to sea level and shows us the usual pack of screaming American teenagers, this time travelling to gather underwear from a desert island (!). well, the island is not completely deserted, the two judges of the whole thing are waiting for the youth. the competition gets away, and everything goes fine, everyone looks pretty and is very cool (pot! ooh!). there's just this one little problem. the island they stormed into features a giant pinata, who gets pretty pis*ed off seeing all those screaming teens. my guess is the pinata was just trying to tell them to shut the he*l up so it could go back to sleep, but since the kids just scream more when they see it, it has no choice but to crack their skulls wide open and stuff their guts in there. tragic. tragic, indeed.

the computer animated pinata is a retarded idea in it self, but the horrible animation makes it even more hilarious. the actors aren't actually too bad, if not good either. the shaky spice goes a little over the top in her acting.

this movie has it all. pretty girls, tropical island, a miserably funny mtv-predator, a little gore even, the fact it all starts when the kids smoke pot, funny acting, stupid music, survivors feel, mcguyver end battle...it's horror but for all the wrong reasons, it's comedy...intended? perhaps, perhaps, not. it's trash, but it's fun, anyway!

people say this movie features unsympathetic characters...perhaps, but they are actually realistic in a universal way. the characters of buffalo soldiers are selfish to the core, and that's the way most people are, it's just a difficult thing to admit. none of the characters get off their arse unless it's to further their personal needs.

elwood is one of the most interesting characters. he is confident, relaxed, not taking anything seriously. that's on the outside. his fear of falling (or landing) well describes his fear for himself. he's not actually afraid of heights, he's afraid of himself, what he might do or has already done. sgt. r. lee (nicely named btw) admits he loves war and destruction. berman is a high-ranking officer of the army but at true gullible idiot (watch out for the 'male pig' dialogue, hilarious). sgt. saad is a powerful underground boss and an angry physical guy, but a vegetarian. robyn lee is a beautiful innocent looking girl, but has a nasty scar underneath her clothing and pops ecstasy. every character is in some way very fragile though tough on the outside. i think it's a very realistic picture of us.

the plot is moving well, and elwood is ALWAYS ahead of the viewer. a nice sly character, good music, hilarious black comedy drug scenes (the tank scene early on is just outrageous) and most importantly, better than catch-22 the movie. the ending was at first a bit too grand and poetic to fit the rest of the movie, and the final scene would not have been needed at all. but, it comes highly recommended.

i was willing to bet money scott baio would've directed this himself, so much it seemed like an actor's 'personal project'. it's written so lousy it's unbelievable, the acting is poor, the characters even more stupendous. kristin minter, john seitz and shuler hensley all fail badly and scott baio is so self-involved it's sickening. rosemary prinz is pretty good, and about the only good thing in this pic. the aim of the movie is to shamelessly milk tears from the gullible audience. thankfully people are not as stupid as the creators of this film obviously thought...not everyone falls for it, and they shouldn't either, it's so obvious. movie making like this is just despicable. me no like.

i didn't even know this was made for television...a good small film with good acting. maggie grace and tom selleck have great chemistry as father and daughter, the rest of the cast isn't bad either. the quiet pace fits well with the country atmosphere, and dulcie's journey to finding herself again is believable. the most impressive scene in the movie, for me, was when dulcie ran into the forest, her dad catches her, she screams and her dad asks 'are you crazy?'. that's where the chemistry really clicks, i get the feeling some other actors might have completely ruined the film. 12 mile road is not a very original film, not even particularly thought-provoking or profound, but it's a great pick to watch a film with your girlfriend that both of you can enjoy. recommended unknown film.

everyone i know who's seen miracles seems to have liked the series. brutally it was canceled before ever really getting a proper chance to show where it's plot was going. the pilot is a downright classic, the rest of the episodes weren't as great, but miracles showed great promise, and once again we can only shake our heads confused with shows like earth final conflict or bold and the beautiful for example going on as long. sadly miracles joins earth 2 in the graveyard of shows that refused to be dumbed down. it's all about the money, i know, but i can't believe people honestly want to see 'reality' TV and a hundred and one different courtroom dramas instead of great thought-provoking, serious series by proper writers and directors who can be called artists.

according to the edison motion pictures site this was an experimental picture to test new equipment and new techniques more than anything else.

the film is a small fragment of a boy swinging his clubs. part 1 is the original and part 2 is the looped version. all this will make a bit more sense when you see fragment 2 where all the material was composed together by gordon hendricks.

the film looks scary like eraserhead, only missing the noise typical for lynch :) not as interesting as some of the other early heise/dickson works, but worth seeing.

all right, the execution of mary, queen of scots is certainly not the prettiest of the edison labs. films. i'm not keen on executions nor bad camera tricks and this one delivers. still, it's the first of it's kind for both, and is therefore essential viewing for anyone seriously interested in film.

now, let's get realistic for a second here. the camera trick used here is one of the first, if not the first of it's kind. apparently it shocked the audience it had in it's days, but for obvious reasons it today looks quite fake. this is also one of the first if not the first film reproducing a historical scene going for the best possible realism, a description that later became a definition for a genre. the execution wasn't very realistic historically either, though.

according to IMDb it's also the first film with trained actors. it doesn't show much ;) but it's yet another merit for this film only mildly interesting in traditional sense. like it or not, the execution of mary stuart ranks high in film history. the influence it has given to countless films after it cannot be dismissed.

this short, 22-second film is another one of edison's black maria studios' motion picture camera experiments, this time heise and dickson immortalize fully war-painted American natives performing the mystical ghost dance.

the film itself is quite dark, you can barely see what's going on. ironically the ghost dance, as far as i understand, was a native American ritual/religion to separate the natives from the white man, his alcohol, weapons and _technology_.

'sioux ghost dance' was shot five years after, according to the story, wovoka's peyote induced vision where he saw the future evils of white man and the second coming of Christ, who (surprise surprise), came in wovoka's shape. as the word spread, the lakota came to meet him and learn the ghost dance. the most fanatic followers of the cult, big foot and his band, mostly women and children, got slaughtered by whites at wounded creek in 1890, only two weeks after the arrests where the lakota chief sitting bull was shot in the head by the lakota police during a gunfight between the police and the ghost dancers, an event precipitating the wounded creek massacre.

those awful hats has a surprisingly funny and witty plot, despite it's short lenght and real purpose. the film serves as an experiment for griffith, who tries out new and interesting things, succeeding brilliantly, i think. the early trick with 'film on film', what we call the blue screen technique today, works well for it's time. i'm curious about the restoring process, and overall about griffith, i have no sufficient info to give an in depth analysis, i just have to count on what i see on the screen. the bucket works nicely. i would be certainly interested to learn more about the making of this short.

surprisingly good, really. i don't know anything about film technology, so this from a guy who just likes films; 7/10

the first griffith film i saw, more to be seen in the weeks to come.

what was surely considered by the men that made this film in 1954 a way to please the censors and say a word for women's rights, today seems like a shockingly sexist, politically incorrect caricature. women are considered 'mistakes', by the narrator. on the field the girls are doing their makeup and making sexy moves for the crowd. wife is home on the stove. man is on the club smoking cigars. certainly an interesting view historically. one has to remember the battle of the sexes had already begun long before this film came out by the braver individuals, but the rooted attitudes have always been difficult to change. have we changed, or are we in the same situation now, 50 years later?

5 of 10, no good but must see

i've always appreciated ray liotta as an actor, and always agree to view a film of his if such an opportunity rises. phoenix was an interesting experience, in my opinion. experience, not in particular a great film, but works okay as a film too.

out of the supporting cast armin mueller-stahl wasn't interesting, but the other white-heared guy was good. gloria reuben wasn't either good or bad.. but there's something about those desert winds, and liotta standing on the balcony like a comic book character with his hands tied and back straight, like blueberry. ray gives another great performance in this film i think people need to recognize. basically it's the sombre and humble tone the movie goes through that impresses me. b-movie, granted, but it doesn't try to pretend to be anything else. it just concentrates on the story and leaves the bombs and cool cuts to others.

perhaps it only attracts people like me who like to be in the storm centre where it's not so windy but you can feel the pressure. doing this for the second time today, i give this a seven to promote an underrated film with integrity.

i don't know what everyone's complaining about, a funny movie with pretty people...works for me. but i think i know a bit...lots of people who watched this have seen two movies they think are great;

it won't give you spiritual awakenings like donnie darko, it's not as dramatic as requeim for a dream.

thankfully. somebody's even complaining about 'happy ending'...pfft.

i give it a seven just to promote a rare modern movie that doesn't make me puke with music video cuts and dramatic substance for once.

plus i can't recollect seeing a movie that would (even slightly) use the times of grunge as it's background.

i generally dislike people who summarize their reviews by stating 'read the book', but in this case i had no choice. i thought about it long and hard and decided there is NO WAY an average viewer can understand what this story is about by simply watching this mini.

this is also going to be difficult to rate, since i thought the whole package of 5 dvds was very entertaining and well-done, and a good bargain for 50 euros. chamberlain, mifune and others do a good job, and so does the crew.

the construction is as well done as it can be on the screen. still, there's something important missing. how can you ever understand the motives of the characters with such a small look into them. in my opinion the book was all about toranaga and the rest of the japanese rather than blackthorne. you can't understand what goes on in the brilliant mind of toranaga, you can't understand why mariko does what she does, fujiko, buntaro, naga who's relationship with is father is completely ignored here, the old hiromatsu, omi & kiri, the twisted sadistic yabu...you're missing out on a lot, i guarantee you.

now, to the minuses of the actual mini. jarre's music is completely out of place. jarre is an interesting composer who sometimes succeeds, and sometimes doesn't. he should've never composed for orientally oriented films, watch soleil rouge, too, if you don't believe. the music in the sombre, dark, violent, intellectual and beautiful tale should've reflected those emotions. the hard-banging war music is completely over the top, and distracts the viewer rather than brings out emotions. but then again, this wasn't quite the sombre, dark, violent, intelligent and beautiful story i read. this mini purely showed the events in a distant, cold way without really tackling the issues of the characters. one smaller problem i had was the way blackthorne and mariko communicated. first they refer to each other as 'you' but after a while they start talking shakespeare with 'thee' and 'thou'. i don't know how this was in the english version of the book, which i have not read, but it was about as annoying as the notorious francesca's accent in clockstoppers. besides, if i remember correctly, in the book blackthorne communicated in latin with mariko and the priests, not in english (just commenting a bit on japanese scenes not having subtitles).

i wish some brave soul would do this all over again, but this time in the way the modern directors can and dare, combined with the subtlety of a kubrick film. thank you :)

good enough entertaiment, but it wasn't my shogun.

reading the plot outline made germgirl seem a little less exciting. i just thought of her as a clever neurotic fighting her way through necessary daily tasks in amusing fashion. a nice little comedic bit to watch between serious movies. well done technically.