Reviews

Being a lifelong Bill Nighy fan, I expected more from this film. I find the premise difficult to believe -- that in 1955 there was such a clamour for an "arts center" that it would overtake everything else. I believe that sort of idea didn't even arise until the 1970s.

While Jason's work to preserve the viewpoints and images of early creators before it's too late is commendable, I watched it with a set of friends who never saw the games in action. For them, it was just odd and a little intriguing, but as we watched the whole 90+ minutes in non- interactive mode there was boredom in the room. Not having experienced the thrill of the chase, it meant not that much to them.

However, myself having experienced many of the early games in my teens and early 20s, it was a great look back at what was an obsession. Granted, I never finished most interactive fiction games because I might be willing to put 5 or 6 hours into it but not 20 or 30 hours so I guess that makes me stupid.

I agree with the other reviewer who said there were opportunities missed to link it with games that evolved out, such as King's Quest, which were a hybrid of text and graphics. Why the bias against that? Also, to be fair, remember David Ahl's "BASIC Computer Games" which had the text of some 300 text games to type in. Many of them, such as Hunt The Wumpus, contained many Adventuresque elements.

Even so, I applaud Jason for having the tenacity of going after his early heroes and definitively linking Collosal Cave system to Adventure for all time.

Well, this movie has all the classic elements of film noir: the femme fatale, a man with incredibly bad luck or karma, the homo-erotic tension between two men, bleak cinematography. The problem is it also wants to have an artificial Hollywood happy ending on it and that ruined it for me. That and the bookending of the story as a flashback is about the oldest and hackneyed scheme of a plot.

Still I gave it a very high rating for the nuanced performances of the three leads, despite a large proportion of simulated animal cruelty, which did not sit well with me. Reese Witherspoon delivers a fine performance, but Robert Pattinson as the head of the circus fails to deliver on why he is damaged goods although he clearly has a cruel past. His character is either happy, angry, contrite, or depressed depending on what is needed to finish the scene.

Alternately cynical and ebullient, this film evokes the best and worst of the reality TV generation with it's breathless minute-by-minute commentary from news reporters who seem as frantic as it's desperate protagonist.

A horribly mis-cast Richard Basehart as "the boy" is difficult to watch. Basehart, best known to me as the craggy captain of the Seaview in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", was actually 37 years old at the time this was made and doesn't fit the role of anxious recent college grad. His co-star, 8 years younger, seems closer to the mark. Basehart can deliver the goods on the ledge though, he just seems a bit long in the tooth for confused youngster.

The movie excels in its tense dialog between "the traffic cop" and "the boy" but it falls flat in every other scene. The cops are all from Central Casting and you're basic stereotypes from every 1940s movie you've ever seen.

A couple of other side-stories are grafted on as bookends, basically spectators who are drawn together by the event. However, the action is telegraphed so far in advance only a four-year old would not know the outcome after the first 3 or 4 lines of dialog. Grace Kelley turns in a nice performance. We rented the movie to see her "Debut", which turns out to be all of about 5 minutes of screen time.

It does presage a real-time action drama like "24". It might have even worked better that way. We are only aware of the gaps in the 14 hour stretch by things like a pile of cigarette butts or more obviously when night falls.

Many people who are simply lazy cast this film into the "Noir" bucket, certainly the cynicism of some of the bystanders fits the mold, but the overall optimism by everyone involved and the lack of a "femme fatale" make this not noir material except by date. Shame on Fox for their laziness in lumping it in there.

A story with four characters and yet no main character. We are supposed to root for Gwyneth Paltrow's character yet she doesn't have that much screen time outside of "concert footage". She has no backstory, no history, only "the thing in Dallas" which is not fully revealed until halfway through the story.

Even Beau, who shares about 55% of the screen time, we know nothing about. Well, only two things: he is a singer/songwriter and he used to be an orderly at a rehab. That's it. Zip.

Not only do the characters have no past, but no future either, other than "Be a Star", whatever that means.

A canonical list of product placements in this movie would run into the pages. Given all the money collected from product placement, there should be free admission given to anyone who attends this commercial-fest.

Some of the most egregious: lingering shots of Aquafina water bottles which have no relevance. Camera freeze on the Cadillac logo as we pan across the car. I literally stared for quite a while trying to decide if it was Chrysler or Cadillac logo. Then they told us "It's a $500,000 Cadillac, don't hurt it". Nokia 6600 cellphone same deal. MSN Search in a "phone booth", I suppose the accurate part was Scarlett had to use her credit card to do a Google-type search, I suppose that IS the future.

This film is a one-trick pony as you might have guessed from the trailers. If you think a shot of a dog urinating is funny, you'll like this film as the dog gets to do it twice. Pretty much that's the level of humor going on here with Kate Hudson trying to gross out Matthew McConaughey. She seems to have aged badly since Almost Famous. Kate carries the day only when she can show her unique mixture of vulnerability and worldly sophistication, which amounts to mere seconds of screen time in this film. Matthew McConaughey mostly looks confused and waiting for a punchline which I suppose is what the screenwriters intended. Is there chemistry? Sure, but again its confined to two minutes in the first part of the film and two minutes near the end. The rest of it is a play-within-a-play and hey folks its not Shakespeare.

Never has flatulence been such an important part of the action since Mel Brooks "Blazing Saddles". I call this film "Dumb and Dumber" meets "The Blair Witch Project". Taking the worst elements of both movies and you get something that makes you want to gouge your eyes out with both hands.

Did I mention other key McGuffins such as porcupine urine, maple syrup, and yes moose testacles.

I was looking for a good, cheap, vampire movie that was locally shot (in the Detroit area). Tainted (1998) seemed to be just the ticket to cap our Halloween celebration. While the movie opens with an exciting and well-orchestrated action sequence, the next half-hour of character development plays like the outtakes from Slackers. Don't get me wrong, I actually liked the humorous riffs from Slackers. However, this writer simply misfires every joke. Imagine a room full of 14-year old boys doing improvisational humor. Maybe the director was channeling the ghost of Ed Wood here, certainly the dialog could have been ghost written by Ed himself.

If your idea of fun is bathtubs full of blood, disemboweling, and sexual torture, then this is the movie for you. Anyone who is not already a psychopath should stay away. I left after only half the movie, having wished to have missed the first three torture scenes.

Those of you who rated this 10 out of 10 obviously have not watched the movie for 30 years and have a highly selective memory. Watch it again and I'm sure your rating will drop 2 to 3 points. <P>Sure it was Robert Altman's breakthrough film and nobody can take that away. However it sucks in a lot of ways and could never be filmed with the original script. <P>Sexual harrassment is supposed to be side-splittingly funny. Maybe this movie was the inspiration for the Tailhook Scandal. <P>Drunken people on the job is supposed to be equally funny. Everything drunk people do or say is supposed to be funny. Martinis, operating room, more martinis. <P>Give me Apocalypse Now any day, the ultimate war movie of the 1970s.

Moe, Larry, Mars! Moe, Larry, Mars! Ok, its not that bad but clearly we have a sort of Apollo 13 where Mission Control is merely a spectator. True there is a 20 minute time-gap for transmissions, but the Mars team might as well be sending postcards. They solve all their near-disasters through improvisation and doing back of the envelope calculations on their wrist computers.

The characterizations are poor. We are supposed to believe these guys all love eachother, they are men who hug. What are their motivations, what makes them tick? 5 minutes of FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON or THE RIGHT STUFF has more character development than the whole interminable two hours of MISSION TO MARS.

Did anyone remember that there is supposed to be "science" going on for these multi-billion dollar missions? Other than one 30-second tricorder scan which goes horribly wrong, there is no telemetry, no data collected, no instruments deployed. Apollo 11 only spent 2 hours on the moon and they did 100 times more science than these guys.

With a plotline lifted from Jane Austen, we see a young woman made destitute by the death of her father forced into a life of service to the rich. A torrid love affair ensues in which we are voyeuristically inserted. However, the motivations of the characters are never made clear. Is the heroine opportunistic, naive, or merely blind to the consequences of her actions? Fans of Minnie Driver will not be disappointed, those of us expecting a plot were, however.

Gattaca belongs squarely in the "future noir" category right next to Blade Runner if for no other reason that they both have a lot to say about science, the quality of life, and the Frankenstein complex. Both Gattaca and Blade Runner both fail to live up to their noir potential in the search for increased marketability. <P>If it fails in other regards its because it reached too far at too many themes: predestiny, genetics as destiny, nature vs. nurture, class distinctions based on birth, an Orwellian state, and the meaning of freedom.

This story is a pastiche of four intercut plotlines

* Mother and daughter conflict

* Boy-meets-girl story

* Two adolescent boys grapple with puberty

* Two old pensioners confronting death

Any two of these would have been plenty, there is not that much connection between the plotlines. It also suffers from an agonizingly slow start.

Holly Hunter in the role of middle-aged woman on the verge of a breakdown can almost do this movie as a one-woman show. The movie begins with her divorce and follows her explorations, from gigolos to a dance floor filled lesbians there is something titillating for all. However, we're expected to follow kafka-esque hallucinations of Holly (at least three) so we never know if something is really happening or being imagined. Ultimately, the movie flirts with surrealism as badly as it flirts with sexuality.

Big pointless explosions, long painful fistfights, lame comedic intervals, one-dimensional bad guys: this is what the Lethal Weapon franchise means. Lethal Weapon 4 delivers all this in mind-numbing quantities. This edition also delivers smarmy feel-good speeches and even hugs between Riggs and Leo. Pesci and Rock slug it out over who is supposed to be the comedic relief with most people wanting them to just shut up. Only two plot-lines are advanced, of which even someone who has seen only one of the previous films can guess the outcome. Riggs and Murtaugh destroy property, kill suspects, and walk away. Shouldn't it be called Lethal Justice?

Soap opera quality production values, leaden writing, and a handful of extras standing around with nothing to do make this an exercise in boredom. The only thing keeping my interest was finding the differences between this researched traditional telling of the Hamlet story vs. Shakespeare's dramatic license. The characters all speak in contemporary English, delivering totally unmemorable lines. Occasionally, Hamlet gets in a barb or two against his uncle-now-father but you'll not find any soliloquies here. In an effort to keep viewers interested, naked breasts are flashed onscreen periodically. The viewer is expected to believe that there are king and queen, yet around them are only a dozen and half villagers in remarkably well built wooden huts. King of Jutland, yeah right.

Writer, director, actor: Duvall proves he has it all and with remarkable poise. Preacher "E.F." may appear to be over-the-top but he's the most human portrayal I've seen in many years. With this film, Duvall sets himself head and shoulders above the other actors of his generation.