Reviews

This is a super film, with laughs galore. Visit kink in a fab fifties decor, and enter SM the "Bland" way. The film is beautifully cast, especially leads Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Robert Bethan, and Susan Saiger.

And you'll learn something, too. Whether it's about bland Buritos, or doggies, or what NOT to take into a hot tub with you!

This is certainly my favorite show for both George Segal and Jane Fonda. They are marvelous as folks trying to make ends meet (by hook OR crook) in the face of unemployment. Their hijinks are marvelous, as they exhaust ALL the possibilities for humor in the search for employment.

Especially memorable are the fashion show, the celebratory dinner, and the performance of Carmen. But good spots in this film are too frequent to even cite!

This film is a delight. It basks in the warm glow of Savannah, presenting a truly delightful range of characters in an endearing manner. The plot is engaging, and it unrolls beautifully.

Casting is masterful. I could especially point out Kevin Spacey's gracious southern gentleman Jim Williams, John Cusack's fresh New Yorker new to southern ways, and Lady Chablis' most stupendous portrayal of her/him self!

The movie basks in the glow of Johnny Mercer ballads. Quite frankly, there is nothing to pan and everything to praise with this film!

Here is a perfect movie. The actors (Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jessica Tandy in particular) are credible, rounded, warm, funny, absolutely perfect. The plot is (in its way) epic, involving a long time span, with significant developments in both past and present. It is a total must-see!

This film too offers tons of memorable moments. It will also supply those quotes to use when one tires of the usual Gone With the Wind or Wizzard of Oz items. You will NOT forget "Towanda," or "The Secret's in the Sauce" in any near future.

This movie is a masterpiece, and a masterful presentation of some most significant lives, and of a way of life which should have survived.

This movie is one of those rare perfect films. Casting is brilliant (especially Stockard Channing, who only gets better and better as the years go by--and she was always totally incapable of less than a fantastic performance). The general plotline of the movie is congenial, and the themes are fulfilling.

In essence, the movie deals with the healing of "broken people." (For other such films, see such gems as "Batteries Not Included".) The unlikely angels? Three drag queens from New York City. The vehicle? Their car breaks down in a red-neck hamlet. Unlikely hijinks and dangerous confrontations lead to a satisfying finale.

And Julie Newmar was never better!

This is certainly the best of the 4 modern Batman epics. A major cause is Tim Burton's wonderfully twisted imagination which was used to create Gotham City. The setting is, in fact, a star of this show! Michael Keaton is no slouch as Batman (he's my favorite of the Batmen) and Kim Basinger is a most appealing romantic interest. This is also just about Jack Nicholson's best role.

In short, all the elements combine in this film to make it memorable, appealing, exciting, and enduring.

A most unusual film, this. And it is a personal favorite. True to the flavour and colour of the Nathaniel West novel. It is well cast, well conceived, and beautifully presented. It is the cynic's view of Hollywood, but with a goodly quantity of truth to it. It ranges from the banal everyday life of a court apartment house, thru some rather high-flown action at the cock fights and the sound stage, to a raging fantasy in its surrealistic conclusion.

I find it gripping, exciting, funny, suspenseful, and a heck of a great entertainment.

The film is brilliant, and brilliantly cast. This is your ultimate backstage film. It is wildly funny, almost painfully so! The timing is remarkable, the casting incredible, the script flawless!

The film recounts trials and tribulations encountered by the cast and crew preparing and touring the British sex comedy "Nothing On" on its way to a Broadway opening.

Buy it! Rent it! Watch it!

This is a stunning film. The score is dynamic--beautifully written and magnificently performed, with a shockingly wonderful presence in its new DVD incarnation. The color is gorgeous, bright, subdued, subtle, stunning--broad of range and magnificent. The dancing is incredible!

Add to this the magnificent variety of tango, and you have an undeniable winner!

And this in spite of the fact that the plot is rather slight, relieved finally and solely because of a rather Pirandelloesque twist at the end.

Roger Moore is a surprisingly stiff James Bond, and lacks the humor most of the other Bonds have brought to the role. The movie is clumsy, and (from the perspective of 1999) terribly dated--rooted as it is in its own times "swinging" pop culture. The movie is slight--with such events as the power boat race occupying a disproportionate amount of screen time, and the cute but clumsy use of the southern "cracker" sherriff.

In short? Give the film a miss if you possibly can.

This made a diverting viewing session. Acting credible, and effects worked. Not up to technical standards we've been seeing lately (the mouse tends to be jerky) but a kind picture, with suspense and laughter. It will amuse. It will not offend.

The average reaction I heard? "My, what a CUTE picture!"

Dalton was surprisingly good as Caesar, as was Zane as Marc Antony. Ms. Varela, however, gave a most unfocused reading of Cleopatra--varying from passion to cruelty to vapidity but with no established core. In an effort such as this, that proved a cruel disappointment.

Sets were gorgeous, as were costumes. One COULD wish that Hollywood might approximate historically accurate women's clothing more closely, though.

This was a visually rich spectacle. The story was fine. But some really effective bits (Cleopatra with attendants in final tableau) really rang enormous bells for those familiar with the Taylor/Burton version.

Not my top cleopatra, nor my 2nd to the top (Colbert is very very good), but definitely on the list. And, indeed, the DVD transfer is gorgeous.

This is a most enjoyable film. It is bright, coherent, funny, suspensful, colorful, and fulfilling. The characters are well conceived and brilliantly executed. This is a Disney film in the best traditions of the Disney studios--miles above Pochahantus, better far than Hercules or Hunchback, on a par with Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Dumbo, etc.

Incredible as it may seem, this film is every bit the equal of the Disney animated version of the same title. And it is DIFFERENT from the Disney version. This is a rare accomplishment, in a medium where remakes and sequels are so often weak.

The film is made by Glen Close, whose appearance as Cruella DeVil is fascinating! She is even more evil than her animated namesake. But the rest of the casting of the film is also incredibly strong. No problems with anyone.

The dalmations are most excellently employed. Virtually seamless integration of live action and computer animation. And also, the hosts of animals (live and animated) in the film do NOT talk (a cloying and sentimental habit too often indulged in by Disney Studios et al).

The film is an adult's movie that children should also enjoy! The VHS version was good, the DVD version even better.

The form of the film is that of a suspense shocker. There are surprises, twists and turns, reverses and excitements. At times, this is truly an "edge-of-the-seat" film. But it disappoints, and disappoints severely.

The villain of the piece is not believeable; his character does not hold together. I refuse to "spoil" the film, but will only say that the character we meet at the beginning just could not be he whom we see at the end.

The second major disappointment of the film is that--finally, it becomes little more that a bloody slasher film. There is little qualitative difference between this and one of the "Friday the 13th" films. Not that every film need always be totally tasteful, but this film does drip gore on occasion.

Though the film features the magnificent Sean Connery, even he does not measure up to his usual standard, and often just seems to be walking through the paces.

What can one say, with 2 stars of the stellar magnitude of Sean Connery and Harrison Ford at their peak, what could go wrong? Nothing goes wrong in this jim-dandy adventure film. It's packed with excitement, humor, and suspense. From first to last, a totally wonderful experience. I have watched time and again and not grown tired of this film.

YOU MUST SEE IT!

From Hitchcock to Kelly to Stewart to Ritter to Burr--an ideal blending of massive talents. This is a favorite summer movie for me--it captures the heat and humidity of New York so perfectly. It creates an enclosed and totally credible world--the central courtyard among a heap of apartment buildings. It is suspense, humor, all that is needed to make it a truly classic film!

This movie is fun, engaging, bright, and positive. In spite of some grave misgivings when I started to watch, I was definitely engaged with this farcical comedy. I have finally figured out why I was so taken with it--the animal actors!

Part of the appreciation of a work almost always is due to the sympathy one feels for the characters. That sympathy is won primarily by assorted Lemurs, Ostriches, Roos, etc. in this film.

I must confess, my jaw dropped open at places in the surprising film, I was so surprised. Certainly some imagination at work here! A truly horrifying world is created, and a nightmare world it is. The film has a sense of style, and in its odd way is true to itself. The realization of a vision.

That aside, I fear the acting job is by and large perfunctory. Ms. Moore and Mr. Chase are rather puffed up with their egos, and deliver throw-away performances. Candy and Ackroyd are, on the other hand, most interesting in their grotesquerie.

Don't expect a great movie, but do expect some finely executed images and concepts.

This is a most exciting and diverting film, with a virtually seamless integration of computer effects and live action. The heroes are admirable, but flawed--in other words, believeable. The monsters are gruesome and grisly, and most realistic. The copious number of body parts and amount of blood may shock, but they're integral to the story. Young and attractive actors. Makes you feel like this "future" war could--in many essential ways--resemble our own Civil War.

Extra materials on the DVD release are informative and copious. Really interesting is the file of outtakes. The editors really knew what they were doing when they excised materials from this film.

This is NOT the best Irving Berlin movie. Nor the best of Astaire. Nor of Garland. It has some good melodies and great dancing, but some very tiring, or trite, or banal material as well. Highlight of the movie? Astaire and Garland doing a formal dance with Garland in pink plumes, but the plumes molt on stage (recall in Strictly Ballroom how Australian kids find similarly molted feathers). Low point? The hat shop, where that tired "Happy Easter" tune plays over and over and over (recall the opening of State Fair for something similar).

This is another of those interesting films set c.1912--watch for the wide-hipped, hoble-skirted fashions (cf Titanic and My Fair Lady, among so many others), which are the hallmark of the period's "Botticelli" look.

This movie would win my vote for best film of the 1990's. It is powerful, emotionally moving, and sensitive, It is an admirable handling of a difficult and agonizing subject. It is a miracle to see such a film produced by the (nominally) heterosexual film industry.

The movie should not leave a "dry eye" in the theatre. Tom Hanks--as the successful lawyer and the ailing gay man--turns in a performance which is right on the button, as is indeed that of each and every actor, sympathetic or not.

The movie depicts a tragedy, but is also not without its consolations--particularly the coming to terms of Denzel Washington through the course of his defense of client Hanks.

A dreary and pointless bit of fluff (bloody fluff, but fluff). Badly scripted, with inane and wooden dialogue. You do not care if the characters (indeed, even if the actors themselves) live or die. Little grace or charm, little action, little point to the whole thing. Perhaps some of the set and setting will interest--those gaps between the boards of all the buildings may be true to the way life was lived. The framework encounter is unnecessary and distracting, and the Hoppalong Cassidy character himself is both boring and inept.

This is a stellar presentation of a fantastic musical. The acting, music, setting, costuming, etc., are perfect. Some have criticized Mitzi Gaynor in her role as Nellie Forbish, but it must be because she is NOT Mary Martin (The stage creator of the role). Granted that, she is wonderfully cast. The Songs are fantastic. I have NO problems with casting or music.

In fact, the movie has one flaw--the use of bizarre color filters for many of the major songs, presumably to enhance the mood. But let us grant that this is simply a failed experiment--and is certainly not much different from the color tinting used in the silent era.

The recent DVD incarnation of this film is wonderful--finally to have the film in glorious wide screen, with colors and definition and sound at their best!

The "message" of the movie--race relations and individual prejudice, could have dated badly; the truth is that the movie's message is as strong as it ever was!

The first of the major Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborations, the creators were instrumental in shaping the film, and it shows. Lively, likeable, incredible performances by all. The recent DVD transfer now delivers fine sound and color and sharpness worthy of the great film!