Reviews

A shame. An all star cast and the great source material have both been wasted. I found the movie to be ridiculously overacted to the point of turning into a farce at times. Overacting was uniform across all the performances so the blame clearly lies with the director who did this on purpose. Lumet filmed this more as a stage play than a movie. In plays overacting is expected. Its role is to make up for the lack of visuals and audio which a stage performance can never supply in full.

Movies have no such limitations and overacting is not only unnecessary but is counterproductive as this movie shows. As I said, a shame. With the stellar cast it could have been so much better. Also, with the exception of Albert Finney the said stellar cast is not given enough material to work Vanessa Redgrave gets particularly short shrift. She hardly has any lines.

5/10.

Ah, what could have been... I have a real soft spot for Streets of Fire. A stylish rock 'n roll meets meets film noir story. It well worth watching just for the songs. One of the best soundtracks ever, particularly the bookends Nowhere Fast and Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young. Diane Lane brings great energy to both and the songs and her performance in those scenes really elevate the whole movie.

Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young should have been topping the charts.

The movie also nails the visuals. Set in a "different time and a different place" it carefully avoids any references to actual events and places (none of the cars have licence plates) and creates a unique gritty aesthetic of its own.

The movie calls itself a Rock & Roll fable in the opening credits and that is a good name for it. It combines rock 'n roll style of the 80s with that of the 50s. Lots of neon signs and all cars are old fashioned muscle cars.

The acting is mostly good with some notable exceptions (more on that later). Rick Moranis is particularly surprising as he plays against his comedic type.

All of this makes for ingredients of a good movie. And it is one but it could have been so much better too.

First, the scripts struggles to combine so many things it wants to do: noir, love, action and rock 'n roll and under delivers as the result. The characters talk as people from gritty Raymond Chandler novels. That was clearly intended but the trouble is that dialogue that works well in a book doesn't always work well on screen and that's particularly true here. It just sounds silly at times.

Another thing is Michael Pare as the main hero. BIG, big miscast. He is just not a good enough actor. This is particularly obvious when he is in the same scene with actors who are actually good such as Rick Moranis. Pare just drags down every scene he is in which is most of the movie, him being the main hero and all. There is zero chemistry between him and Diane Lane and the romance between them doesn't work despite Lane's best efforts. She is much better in the scenes without him, particularly the musical numbers. Apparently the director considered other people for the role such as Patrick Swayze but chose Pare. Big mistake IMHO.

Still, the movie is well worth watching. 7.5/10.

I just finished watching the show. I watched it because it's considered one of the best anime series ever and a classic of the genre. Not in my book.

The series takes several sharp turns over time, some for the better, some for the worse and some for the absolute worst. It started out rather ordinary. Giant robots are so NOT my thing that I would have stopped watching after a couple episodes. Knowing the show's reputation I didn't and then things got interesting. For a while I was hooked. I like character driven stories which explore complex ideas. The downside here was that most of the characters are rather unlikable (Rei and Misato are ok) and seem to have come straight from Freud's wet dream. Huge mommy and/or daddy issues on several of them. This gets worse towards the end of the show but more on that later. Still It seemed like this show might be interesting for a while in the middle episoides. But then came the last few episodes and a well...

I have some minimal standards I expect from any movie or the show. Things need to be explained by the end, mysteries resolved, plot lines tied up. Even if a sequel is intended (was not the case here) enough should be explained to make things coherent. There should be no Chekov's guns which are left unused.

Forget Chekov's gun's, this show is littered with Chekov's ballistic missiles which go absolutely nowhere.

It becomes pretty clear by the end that there was no overall plan for the story and no ending envisioned at the beginning and the show was flying by the seat of the pants from episode to episode. Not a recipe for good TV. It's how you end up with Arya killing the Night King. But I digress.

Honestly, the last few episodes give an impression of a severe depressive episode by the director which is transferred to the screen.

Not a pretty sight and not anything I enjoyed watching.

I've read that later movies attempt to rectify the situation. Maybe they manage to do that but that doesn't excuse the flaws of the original series which are bigger than the giant robots it depicts. 5/10.

This series is very different from the other anime series I have seen so far (admittedly it's not a huge number). As the other reviewers have stated it follows the struggle of two main protagonists on galactic scale, one fighting for a "good" dictatorship and the other for a flawed democracy. The main strength of the series is definitely its well developed characters. There is back story, there is character development and complexity. You sympathize with a lot of characters on both sides of the struggle (in fact there are more sides than two) and can see things from different perspectives. There are no "right" answers or right courses of actions in many situations for a lot of the characters and a lot of things are not black and white. People often face thorny ethical issues where every decision has a cost, often a big one. The show is also not afraid to kill off important characters when the story calls for it. This is not uncommon in anime but rather rare in western TV.

There are a number of flaws however and there is much here that can be improved upon. I have not seen the recent remake (only just finished watching the original) but I hope it addresses some of them. First, animation is quite poor. I don't know the reason for this ( perhaps lack of money?) but the low quality of animation is quite grating, particularly when showing space battles. Next, despite a number of characters being complex and well developed there are also quite a few which are cartoonishly simplistic. I would not expect to see stereotypical cartoon villains in a series like this, yet there are quite a few. There are also a number of situations where many characters (usually secondary ones but still) act as such complete idiots it strains suspension of disbelief beyond breaking point. This also applies to many political situations which is particularly bad as it's one of the main topics the show investigates.

Next, there is a bit too much pontificating at times. I prefer "show, don't tell" in movies. This series often seem to follow a different adage: "show and tell, and tell, and then tell some more".

Lastly, the show is quite dated, sometimes hilariously so. I understand that one must make allowances given the show's age but still. It's SciFi so one would expect the writers to put some thought into depicting life and technology 1000 years in the future. Yet, apart from videophones and self driving cars a lot of things look pretty much as they did in the late 80s. People write letters by hand on paper using ink pens, laptops look like they did around 1990, computers use floppy drives (!), and interstellar communication is done by, I kid you not, telegraph (!!).

Some of the above issues are less pronounced in seasons 3 and 4 but you have to watch a lot of episodes to get there.

Overall, an interesting series, worth a watch, particularly to see a different type of anime series than most series out there.

There is something about Mary is hysterically funny but it's not for everybody. Prigs need not apply and in fact would be WELL advised to stay well clear of it as they are highly likely to be offended. This is evidenced by a large number of 1 star reviews I see here. The gags push the boundaries of propriety as far as possible and then push them some more. Some were a bit too much even for me (the "hair gel" and the zipper scenes) and I generally don't mind "inappropriate" jokes (one of my favorite movies is Bad Santa).

But my only real complaint about the movie (and the reason I decided to write this review) is not about its content or directing but this: What in the world did they do to poor Cameron Diaz?! What SOB thought it was a good idea to starve this gorgeous girl for this role? Really. Sometimes I just hate Hollywood for what they do to women. Just compare how she looks in The Mask (1994) and here (1998). In The Mask and even in later movies like Head Above Water (1996) and Feeling Minnesota (1996) she is voluptuous and curvy. So what's up with the matchstick figure and hollow cheeks in Something about Mary??!! Who is responsible for this and where do I send hate mail?

I've just watched the Two Towers and I liked it very much but it didn't floor me like the Fellowship did.

There is a lot to like about TTT. It's truly epic, it's action packed, some of the battle scenes are simply breathtaking and the special effects are great (the CGI Gollum simply rocks).

TTT is probably the most difficult of all three books to film mostly because story splits into several separate lines. The resulting constant crosscutting is often annoying and momentum breaking. Also there are a number of new characters and there is simply not enough screen time to develop them. Same goes for many of the the plot lines some of which are VERY thin. (hopefully this will be partly rectified on the extended DVD). For example, I found the explanation of why Faramir lets Frodo go entirely unconvincing. BTW, there ARE some plot changes as compared to the book. Unlike other Tolkien fanatics ( I think I qualify as one having read the books several times a year for the past 10 years) I don't think they were excessive. Such changes are always necessary when converting a book into a movie. For all those screaming about too many changes, just compare TTT with something like the Three musketeers, the Count of Monte Cristo or any of the Disney adaptations and you'll realize that you really have nothing to complain about.

However, I found that a couple of the new plot twists simply didn't work. The would be death of Aragorn is a prime example. The ploy there is EXACTLY the same as in the fall of Gandalf and it doesn't advance the story so why do it?

Finally, some of the acting performances in FOTR (most notably Bilbo, Boromir and Galadriel) were so good that the new guys (such as Faramir and Theoden) simply pale in comparison. I wish they'd let Sean Bean play Faramir too - just make Faramir and Boromir twin brothers or use a bit of make up.

As far as acting is concerned Gollum steals the whole show (huge props to Andy Serkis who played him).

Anyway, despite its shortfalls TTT is a very good movie, more than worth the money to watch it.

I'm somewhat surprised at the relatively high user rating for this movie. A lot of gore but not much else. I do hope the game that it is based on is better than the movie. The only redeeming feature is a lot of scantily clad Milla Jovovich who IS all that. However, if that's your cup of tea, I highly recommend renting "The Fifth Element" instead.

I don't like movies based on true stories. Fiction is a lot more cinematically compelling: the script can be changed at will - new characters or plot twists can be introduced, a couple of explosions can be added, endings can be changed to better please the audience and so on. With real story based films there is none of that and therefore it's almost impossible to maintain suspense or create the sense of purpose.

"All the President's men" is one stark exception. Despite being based on a true story book ( and a non fiction one at that!) it will keep you on the edge of your seat better than any thriller. This is mostly due to a good script and excellent acting performances by Redford, Hoffman and Robards. For those from another planet, the story is about two Washigton Post reporters Bob Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Hoffman) and their investigation of the Watergate scandal. Robards is also great as a tough Post editor Ben Bradlee. The story is told through the eyes of Woodward and Bernstein. The president and his men are never seen on the screen which makes their presence all the more sinister.

Movie's portrayal of the day-to-day journalist routine is very believable. Unfortunately, some of the shadier methods employed by the two reporters in their quest for the story (which WERE described in the book) are left out. This makes their characters somewhat one-dimensional. However, this is a relatively small gripe. My only other regret is that the book and hence the movie end too abruptly before the story resolves itself.

This is, of course, inevitable because the latter part of Watergate was dominated by different players than two Washington Post reporters. Not surprisingly, the book "The Final days" (also by Woodward and Bernstein) which deals with that period is not told from the reporters' perspective. Incidentally, "The Final days" is every bit as good as "All the president's men" and I wish someone made a movie based on that.

All in all "All the president's men" is a must see classic that stood well against the test of time.

If this movie won't make you laugh you must be dead or in a coma. Great script and great acting by just about everybody. As many other reviewers have mentioned, Marisa Tomei won an Oscar for her role in this movie and by rights Pesci should have won one too. Speaking of Tomei, I really don't understand why she hasn't had a better career. She is beautiful, charming and can really act. Yet where are the big roles? What's wrong with Hollywood?

Getting back to "My cousin Vinny". The movie is great. Go rent it today. However, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES watch this movie when they are showing it on regular TV. I made that mistake recently and was thoroughly disgusted. The problem is that the movie has a LOT of strong language and to accommodate the rating requirements they had to edit it out. I don't know who was in charge of that particular surgical procedure but somehow while trying to perform circumcision they ended up cutting off patient's legs and a large part of the stomach. Understandably, the result was not pretty.

The biggest problem with this movie in my opinion is that it tried to combine two totally different genres - martial arts and drama. To have any chance of success in such a project one needs a star who is a good actor as well as a good fighter. With all due respect to the amazing fighting skills of Jet Li, a great actor he is not. His beautiful co-star Aaliyah is better but still I think it was a big mistake to give her a leading role in her very first film. Another thing that really turned me off was the way the relationship between Li's and Aaliyah's characters is portrayed. I thought that the intent of showing an interracial love story was pretty courageous. Therefore I was extremely disappointed when they ended up holding hands. How can this happen in a movie which is supposed to be based (however loosely) on the greatest love story of all times?! Anyway, because of all this as a drama the movie sucked.

However, the action part was really pretty decent. I'm not a purist and I don't see anything wrong with using computer enhancement in the fight scenes. They have to be original and look cool. Both missions accomplished as far as this movie is concerned. There were a couple of other nice surprises. I was very impressed by Russel Wong. Now here is a guy who is good at both fighting and acting. Unfortunately he has a very limited screen time in this movie. The guy who plays Moron ( oops sorry, Maurice) is great too. Overall I would say rent at your own risk and don't expect too much and you just might enjoy it.

Most people I've asked about this movie have never heard about it and I think it's a real shame. Set against picturesque background of Welsh countryside and leisurely paced this movie totally won me over with its gentle humor and its colorful and beautifully developed characters. I'm not a big fan of Hugh Grant but here he performs quite well. Besides he is not what makes this movie work.

I just love all the supporting characters - Thomas Twp and Tara Fitzgerald as Betty and of course the pair of local archnemesis Rev. Jones and Morgan the Goat. I've seen Colm Meany in a few movies and on TV (I think he plays in one of the Star Treck series) and I've never thought much about him as an actor but he is simply hilarious as Morgan.

So what is this movie about? There isn't much of a plot so without giving anything away I'll just say that it's about a sleepy Welsh village coming together for a noble cause. What's the cause and would you find it noble?

Watch the movie and judge for yourself.

When I'm in a bad mood and the life doesn't seem too bright I pull out the tape with "Big L." and start my VCR. The first time I watched this movie I was laughing so hard my stomach ached for a couple of days. And it only got better on the second viewing since not being an American I missed many of the jokes the first time around. The acting is superb by everybody from Jeff Bridges who is 100% authentic as the Dude to Flea who cameos as a misfit would-be kidnapper. The story is wonderfully original. The cinematographic work is great ( how about those nutty dream scenes?!). I will not spend time describing the plot as many others have done this already but I'll say this: If like me you have trouble facing adversity in your life, take the lead from the ultimate walrus - the Dude and take it easy. And if you can't, the Dude will do it for you. "I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners." Peace, \/.