Reviews

A kind of religious movie... A young rich woman (an angel?) comes, sets free the poor people living like prisoners in "Cold Comfort Farm" (great title!) and, once her mission is done, flies away. Before her arrival, all were dull and enslaved by the old lady living upstairs... but our angel knows what's right for everyone. Maybe the message is: you will be happy only if you follow your dreams. A delicious English fairy tale, that I watched with a constant smile on my face. Schlesinger proves himself a very good director. After all, can anyone tell me what the old lady saw in the wood-store?

If this movie would have been like its first 40 minutes, now we'd been talking about a masterpiece. Unfortunately, after the initial fireworks due to the perfect duet between an extraordinary actor as Laurence Olivier and the magnificent Marilyn Monroe, the movie loses its push, maybe because the story doesn't know where to go. Actually the movie is good only when there's Olivier and Marilyn together in a room: the rest is really pointless. It's a pity because the scenography, the music, the acting and the direction of Olivier were good. A lost opportunity.

Do you want to see a movie where you can laugh, where the main character is clumsy but generous and idealist, where nearly the whole bunch of characters are only caricatures and where every vulgarity forbidden in other films is allowed here? Then watch this movie... Personally I watched it because I wanted to have some good laughs and I had what I wanted, nut nothing more. I adored the previous Farrelly bros' movie (Dumb & Dumber) where everything was crazy and farcical. The defect of this one is that there are two characters that are too human (played by the divine Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller): so the exhilarating scenes that include Stiller (and where you laugh almost to tears) seem uprooted from the other more serious scenes where the directors have to develop the story, just because they have two human character,too. So the rhythm of the movie seems to limp (just like many characters) and it goes too long, for a movie of this kind. The invention of the two boys that play and sing (like a greek chorus all through the movie) is very good. A few last words about the advertised "politically uncorrect" in this movie: I found the scenes including disableds not too disturbing. In fact I believe it's right to treat them like the rest of the people because they are human beings just like the others, but take care not to exaggerate, or it could transform in racism.

This movie is one of the most famous in the history of cinema, but I can't see the reasons. It's true that Marlon Brando plays like a god and that Al Pacino begins to show why he is one of the best living actors... but there are too many dialogues that choke the breath of the movie. There are also some "holes" in the screenplay: for instance, why do we see one of the Godfather's sons (Al Pacino) first like a shy guy and then like a determined and blood-thirsty beast? Only because they killed his sicilian wife that he forgets soon to marry another girl? The direction of Coppola is flat: I don't like the way he just throws away the "crescendo" of some thrilling scenes and the way he doesn't emphasized the story. Besides after some killings we get to know their ways, so the last killings are "phoned"... we exactly know what is going to happen and so the surprise goes wasted. Only in the final Coppola succeeds in finding a beautiful alternated editing where he shows the deep contradictions of the members of the Mafia: Michael Corleone is in a Church where he swears to renounce the Devil and in the meanwhile his men are making a massacre. So: a good film but not a masterpiece as many people think.

A very boring and foreseen movie, with an awful Robert Taylor playing the leading role. Many old movies are effective even today, but this movie is surpassed... dead and gone. I don't realize how the 1950's people could enjoy such stuff. The actors are one more awful and unpleasant than the other (in such a contest Robert Taylor wins easily: he smiles only once in the whole movie and all the time he stands with a facial expression like a tomb stone), the fighting scenes are often ridiculous because the tricks are visible, the plot doesn't exist and the dialogues are heavy in their attempt to be Shakespeare-like. When you see that Elizabeth Taylor among the others seems skilful and nice, you can realize the rating of this movie: low.