Reviews

A not bad, nifty thriller that unfortunately breaks the rule that you can't trust what you are seeing. It's one thing if a character is constantly hallucinating, it's another that the audience is exposed to it without realizing it. I watched this last night and was scratching my head as if I had missed something important along the way. No. But I had to go back and rewatch most of the film for it to make sense. While the ending is a suprise, it's cut too abruptly, it's far too short in trying to tie up some of the looser ends, and it doesn't really convince the audience. There are also some problems with the script's language that doesn't help. A keener eye would have caught some of the mishaps. That said, there are chills aplenty to make up for a lack of sanity.

Enertaining, smorgasboard scan of a group of ordinary people in a film about a recent event that rocked Wall Street. Modestly aimed, but snarkily ironic, especially since most of the superstars are extraordinarily wealthy., Could have been a lot tighter and not so dependent upon its soundtrack to keep it moving. However, it is not without a sense of reality. While it really needed another 15 minutes to feel satisfying, it was aimed at a certain Reddit audience that won't mind these flaws at all. If you don't mind a slew of f bombs and racy rap lyrics that don't add nearly enough information to the plot line, you can feel ok about spending a few bucks on this mildly amusing flick.

I binge watched this in the last two days as I have seen at least 3 versions of the original novel by Shirley Jackson, the best being the first from 1960, followed by varioius middling versions that failed to ignite. The writer of this version took all the original names of the novel's characters, threw them up in the air, and created a new different story with none of the relationships from Ms. Jackson's novel. Why not just write an entire new novel and call it by an original name? I suppose it might have been possible, but the name recognition and reputation hooked me, so why not others?

You may recall that James Cunningham took Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, used the original names but rearranged relationships and came up with his The Hours. I enjoyed that novel for its originality, not for it's synthesis of Mrs. Dalloway.

However, this 10 hour version of Hill House is a long haul for a few chills, made all the more boring by a lack of interest, slow pacing and even worse, no suspense. While there is some skillful acting, and one or two scares, the whole thing falls flat. Ms. Jackson must be turning over in her grave. What a waste.

While we are glad films like this actually get made to show that gay people in love relationships die just like Ali McGraw in "Love Story" and Barbara Hersey in "Beachers" and etcetera etcetera etcetera, this just could have been so much better. Did we really need the distraction of Sally and Bill as the dying hero's parents as the sacrificial reason to NOT EXPLORE the relationship between two intelligent adult gay men, except to go from big love to neurotic can't talk about it except in front of a therapist. And all that imaginary tv show bull did not help the film. Not good enough, even for all the high production values it contains. Once again, the script suffers embarrassingly from its iniability to confront the true subject of the picture.

I loathed the previous M. Film "Older" or whatever it was called, but I support creative artists who take risks. So I dropped $12 at my local cinema in Cobble Hill and saw it in a 200 seat theatre with a total of 6 cinema goers and one shy mouse.

The sum of this film is that heterosexuals with valuable lives and children of their own will give up their lives to stop gay marriages from continuing. MTG will love this film. Gay marriage must be sacrificed to save the world. Hannity, Tucker, you getting all this?

That is not the sum of the intent of the film, but in this day and age, why give this dilemna to a gay couple, one of whom is taunted by being targeted? And then, if he is so traumatized, why would any self-preserving gay man rent a cabin in the middle of nowhere in Trump country Pennsylvania. What, no hotels in Philly?

Despite the fact that the best parts are written for the gay couple as flashbacks while the worst parts are played by worst actors as the four intruders, this film is simply not good. I shouldn't say worst actors, as they are given incoherent sppeches accompanied by deadly delivery.

I can't compare this to the origina nove, but the screenplay is stillborn, It starts but then evaporates. Just when the gay parents should be screaming their brains out against the intruders, the camera fades to black. No intruder ever really explains the visions or WHY THEY DIDN'T SEE A GAY COUPLE IN THEIR VISIONS. HELLO. Tha's a big missing piece.

No development whatsoever, but plenty of well acted flashbacks for the family, nothing of the intruders. And the big bald actors should have a skull cap made because when he is on screen, all you can look at are the scars on top of his head. At a certain point, we as audience must ask ourselves if the plethora of tattoos will ever make his acting this part remotely believable? Or are total tattoos the new normal?

Switching quickly to the zero suspense factor, this film is dying to be made. There's a giant drama waiting to happen but this is so sanitized and sterile, it's almost overly streamlined. II M. Had only hired a scriptwriter.

Would you let your only two children spend a week with your parents whom you ran away from and have not spoken to in 15 years? Would you? Despite a generous amoount of contemporary drivel and plastic charcteristics substituting for character, this film sucks. Like so many of his other deadly exercises in horror, M. Fails again. Too bad. So much promise after The 6th Sense, so little foillow-thru. Yes, there are a few moments of suspense, moments, fleeting and contrived. Tsk tsk tsk. It is amazing that he still gets funding for what is such transparent schlock. Didn't anyone realize how contrived and ridiculous the premise was? Three separate cuts and endings and he chose the one most absurd? I am going to melt this one in my barbecue so no one has a chance to waste 90 minutes and a buck at the next stoop sale. And after the last fiasco, Older, I'd say it was about time M. Retires.

Without the two leads, there is no reason to watch this flick. The absurd premise that female writers are not read ignores the history of the Bronte sisters, Edith Wharton, Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind) and many other women writers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Addtionally, the history of nom de plume (George Sands, George Eliot) should have been known by the main female English major writer/character and should have given her at least a shred of an idea as to what to do with her talent, before becoming a slave to her inept husband. The silken and bloodless film, paced deliberately like a foreign film but lavished with a sensitive score to supply emotion and nuance that apparently could not be found among the writing, dies an early death. The cliches, the set-up, the secondary characters, the endless flashbacks, all slow down what culminates in a dimestore firework display of "f" words that substitues for genuine drama. Why Jonathan Pryce was not nominated for an acting award is curious? Why his character is specifically Jewish fails to bring any resonance to the story? One wonders if that detail is an anti-semitic sentiment or just a leftover detail that offers no further insight to this car crash of a film.

Despite scattered individual moments of interest, this long dull remake needs a writer, an editor and a concept. Only one song survives without butchery, La Vie En Rose. The story details are ludicrous, the relationship unexplored, some dialogue unintelligible, and the ending preposterous. Her not-very-big big nose, his non existent manager, the big brother's mumblind instead of speaking, and her bulldozer cliche driven manager all contribute to the unbelievable fairy tale romance that leaves with one word: REALLY. This film is just some beautiful dead space. And cutting her final song for a shot of the dead male singer doing a duet. No thanks. Save your money

Despite a cast of hardworking actors, this dull sudsy goody two shoes comedy drama is shallow and plastic, with neither enough humor, drama nor interest to sustain its two hours of pretty images and one dimensional ninnies. At the core of the comedy is a scene out of Pink Flamingoes that takes center stage when a bitchy southern queen eats a chocolate pie from her maid that has more of her maid than chocolate pudding. UGH. Not my opinion of good taste, this film makes every white woman in the south a bitch and every black woman holier than thou. Where is Michele Bachman's opinion, now that we need her. Yeah, I can see Oscars lining up to the ceiling, but not for a dull script and a waste of two hours. Predictable and trivial. No disrespect to any maid, but this is just sentimental sanctimonious crap.