Reviews

First of all, this series has the best music ever seen in film. Ennio Morricone in my mind has the stature of a Beethoven or Bach or Wagner.. really he's that good, and his music will last that long.

Now that this is out of the way .. to have a series that lives up to Ennio's music is really a miracle.

If you think about it, TV has always been a "second hand" medium when it comes to quality. Well, as TV series go .. this doesn't feel like a TV series.

Even if it's long, and the whole series has two or three arcs over 7 seasons, it's not diluted at all. It's focused from beginning to end so you only grow more attached to the characters, you invest more and more emotion in it. It's like the best tragic movie you can think of, tweaked at 75% intensity, but with incredible peaks of emotion, and keyed to the most beautiful music on earth.

Think about the countless hours you've spent watching garbage in front of the TV, and try to get this series and watch it, as revenge. :)

I can't see anything better being made on TV.

The things that stood out in this movie are:

• the incredible courage of Piper Perabo .. there were scenes that would be quite silly but she delivers them total conviction, and it works

• Jessica Pare is quite lovely and has a shyness and a sincerity about her that's touching ...

One line summary: Shakespearean tragedy about love .. with cute girls making out.

Just my kind of movie :)

PS: I browsed Jessica's filmography and it seems she's in quite a lot of interesting movies ...

This show added a new dimension to scifi, and was so god damn good for a TV production it's scary.

All the characters are close to perfect, and they added main characters as they went along!!! And they did it exceptionally (except with you know who :))

The only thing comparable to it is ST:TOS.

Hell, the puppets on this show are better acted characters than 90% of the actors out there.

Everybody is so god damn impressed by Gollum. I say to the fires of Mount Doom with him! IT is a bumbling fake idiot, not a character.

Bring on Rygel and Pilot.

I can think of at least 10 romantic comedies in the last 2 years only that have scores like 5 and are much worse than this. This movie had some really funny moments (wanted AND unwanted).

I saw 10 minutes of the Mariah Carey movie, and 15 minutes of the Britney movie, but this was worth full viewing.

I can't fathom how pure excrement like bad boys 2 has a score of 6 and this movie 1.8. The human race IS stupid.

---------------------------------------begin quote Date: 15 March 2002 Summary: Abominable and far from romantic

So many people fail to see the true meaning of this film. It's not a comedy, or a romance, or a romantic comedy. It's a statement on the unfortunate fact women's love can be bought, and sometimes that's the only (or best) way to get it.

Julia Roberts starts off in this movie as a prostitute, and she ends up as... a prostitute. The only difference is she found someone rich and handsome enough to pay for her love, rather than just sex.

It's no surprise that on the voting scales, women consistently voted this higher than men. Men know the Richard Gere character deserves someone far better than some lowlife hooker, even if she is the overrated (I happen to think she's ugly) Julia Roberts.

But with women, it's the whole fairy tale they all desperately want to believe, that no matter how little they have to offer, no matter how low their standing in life, that their Prince Charming, their Mr. Perfect, their Knight in Shining Armour, or as in this movie, their Handsome Millionaire is waiting to sweep them off their feet.

Many women die lonely and bitter because of the myth this movie and others like it helps to perpetuate. But considering what they are expecting, it's hard to feel sorry for them... since they would have rejected and broken the hearts of many good, decent men while waiting for their dream.

I only wish I could vote 0 for this utterly vile piece of filth.

---------------------------------------end quote

All this is true, and despite it I couldn't wipe the stupid grin off my face. Like the man says, this is the genius of Hollywood, making the impossible seem posible. As Hollywood movies go, I rate this as high as Terminator 2, and that's no small feat. See you ...

This was a sci-fi show with a little more brains than the most, so of course it had to die. Every time a show shows some brains, the ratings drop :)

Great use of ecology, good actors, no ending.

And another question: why do spaceships have some dumb air friction sound every time? They are in space for god's sake! And don't get me started on the fizzling lasers :)

L'Amant is a very beautiful, haunting and sensual film. The characters are perfect and acted in a minimalist way that's refreshing.

I see here that the main objections to this film are: 1 .. Not enough character development 2 .. The film does not have a clear direction to where it's going 3 .. Too slow 4 .. Too much sex (for some people if a film has explicit sex it can't be good)

All these objections are pointless:

1 .. The characters here are ordinary people, not that interesting by themselves. It's the love story that's interesting. Both of them know they have no future and try to pretend it's not love. I am sick of films in which the characters are sure they love each other after 30 minutes of "character development".

2 .. The fact that this film does not follow a clear path it's one of it's qualities. It adds more drama and the characters themselves are confused and don't know where they're going. The whole film plays like a dream of love and to request "clear direction" it's pointless.

3 .. Ahh! The "too slow" argument. There are films in this world that make you think about you, your life and the world that's around you. Surely you need some TIME to reflect on that. Short attention-span is a bad thing :).

4 .. This film is about love. The fact that they are shown having sex makes them real persons, with real bodies not some film characters. Sex is an escape from the world around them and I don't think it's too much, too explicit or some nonsense like that. It's so hard to have a film with sex it it that's not trivial! This is a masterpiece by this fact alone.

The persons who "though up" these arguments took the main strengths of the film and complained about them. This for me it's proof enough that they didn't understand this film or that the film didn't struck a single chord in their soul. Short attention span is the main plague of films now and the lack of it is the reason the french make such great films! Please try to see it again and not in a hurry. It's not light cinema! It's great cinema!

Let's face it, for some people religious movies will never work. Most of these people who say Stigmata is a crap movie I think they never gave it a chance.

This movie has at least two things: the actors - Byrne and Arquette and the final sequence in the garden. That sequence saved the movie for me and gave it a beautiful sense of transcendence based on the myth of St. Francis of Assisi.

Overall I give it 8/10.

When I see movie like this and I think how many Van Damme movies I've seen... it sort of makes me think I'm not as smart as I thought.

:)

Anyway, when you've had enough of the typical american movie, see this.