Change Your Image
user245
Reviews
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Yes, it is boring and pedantic yet visually stunning.
If you're used to the TV show, then you will find this movie frightfully boring. The pace is much much slower than the television series, the director (known for The Day the Earth Stood Still and West Side Story) really wanted to push for something deeply insightful, but clearly misses the mark. The logic vs. emotion card has been played out so many times in the TV series that at this point its simply a tired cliche in desperate need of retirement. There's a lot more potential in the Star Trek universe than the Spock vs. Bones dynamic.
Boring doesn't necessarily mean bad, the story is salvagable and the visuals are brilliant, regardless if the best parts are a shameless rip-off of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The effects are very good, even by today's standards and the sets, especially the ship, don't have that 60's TV cheesiness nor the corporate look of ST: The Next Generation.
Die-hard Star Trek fans tend to eat this up as they consider it to be the "intellectual" treatment of the Star Trek universe, but its no smarter than Kirk's silly alien love affairs or the even sillier blatant Star Trek ethnic stereotypes. If you're the type that thinks that an insightful view of existence and consciousness has to do with the simple emotion vs. logic dichotomy then you'll love it, if you find this simple minded and pedantic then you'll shut it off half-way through or turn the sound down and just enjoy the visuals.
The Deli (1997)
Original, funny, and intelligent.
This movie is so full of charm and characters that vary from the stereotypical to oddly original not to mention some of the best casting and acting you'll see in a small film its amazing its not more popular. On the surface this seems like a typical italian mafia-esque piece, but the characters are so endearing and plain hilarious at times you won't catch yourself thinking 'Mean Streets' once. Everything about this movie is good, the story, the pacing, the cinematography, it all comes together into a very funny, original and intelligent movie. I couldn't get up from watching this after the first 5 minutes, go to the videostore you probably won't be disappointed.
Screwed (2000)
Its worse than you think
This is not Norm Macdonald funny, this is not even Carrotop funny. Every gag fails, the movie is shot in dark, depressing colors which only drive the "sad, very sad" message straight to the subconscious. This movie is a shining of example on how not to make a slapstick meets a crazy twisting plot movie.
Pitch Black (2000)
He's the black superman
This movie is a must avoid, the ridiculousness of the main character is way too much to swallow, even for sci-fi fans. Imagine a character who is never wrong, has incredible strength, can appear from nowhere, and is psychotic in a scary hannibal lector way yet is full of urban street-smarts in an Ice-T kind of way.
You'll just laugh at how this guy just doesnt belong in this movie and is so unbelievable he doesn't belong anywhere. A scene that cracked me up is when he manages to escape and starts poping around in weird places once ending up sitting on a lawn chair reclining and sunning himself until someone looks that way and hes gone INSTANTLY. I'm not sure but I think he has holding a glass of lemonade.
Easily the worst movie I've seen in ages, go see it if you want to laugh at this sorry production.