Reviews

This is a movie buff's movie. It's so damned full of life, so flamboyant, so fast paced, so wild, so full of rich characters -- I know I'll watch this at least two more times, and I NEVER do that.

On the down side, it's one of those movies that has *alot* of characters, and a real multi-tentacled plot, and it does involve a stolen diamond (but there's no people in black suits on wires avoiding laser beams I assure you). There's an evil guy in here about 65 called Brick Top who looks like your grandfather but he's got this eye that just roves around. Damn this is a good movie. Brad Pitt is even more amusing here than he was in Fight Club, and he's just a secondary character. And the plot coalesces like a complex puzzle.

Sometimes you see so many bad movies in a row you lose faith in humanity. This will cure what ails you. Snatch is truly it's own movie -- there's nothing like it. It's too good to analyse further. The Brits always have had it over Americans in the character department, and this is a prime example.

The short version is that this is just a tedious pile of boring horror movie cliches with alot of fear for fears sake, gore for gore's sake, alot of noisy shooting, yelling, kicking in doors, alot of tedious special effects, alot of ripoffs from movies from Alien to Friday the 13th. I mean, the phone rings and theres this evil voice from hell on it. Give me a break. And spare me the dripping goo, and spare me the plot filler explanations. You mean if we shoot (whatever) with this special (whatever) it will kill the (whatever)? God, if I hear that drivel once more tentacles may shoot out of *my* eyeballs.

I say this as a Dean Koontz fan, and I know he did the script. I believe I've read just about all his books, and his books are not like this. His books are good. He gets a real creepy thing going in some of them. So .. don't see this because you like him. This is alot like of Stephen King's drivel where evil forces do things to scare crap out of people for no reason (other than making money). These people should be required by law to have a logical explanation for everything that results in things that look like people but really aren't, or heads exploding and all the blasted brains pulsating around.

You've sold your soul, Koontz, now you're one of those mind-controlled zombie you always write about.

Ripped off almost verbatim from Jaws. Small beach community worried about giant shark during tourist season becomes small town worried about giant snake during beer festival. Sheriff becomes woman sheriff. Shark catcher becomes snake catcher (Pat Morita). Pat, you are no Robert Shaw. Not only is this a stinker it's criminally plagaristic. If this movie was any good they'd get sued.

The interesting characters in this are a couple of guys who used to be vampire hunters but, after an "accident" (they got bit) have become unabashedly undead, and never had more fun. They dress somewhere between hippies and 18th century fops, and at one point lecture the protagonist on their "researches" which purport to explain the origins of devil worship in Europe in relation to the Catholic Church. It's all tongue in cheek. One the two guys smokes a pipe, and presumably it's not for tobacco.

There's elaborate sets and amusing action for something so low-budget. In the heroine's room there's a Dali-esque chair with a monstrous man-like thing behind it. In place of its stomach is a fish bowl with fish and a skull inside, and a closeup of the skull shows reflections of the burning fireplace in its eyes. The clock strikes midnight and a skinny lesbian vampire slinks out of the bottom part and starts putting her hands on the buxom heroine, who doesn't object. Not bad, eh?

The music is good and actually enhances the action. Plenty of T&A, with slow pans over naked babes, a pair of deadly Madonna-like tit-spikes, and other good stuff. You can probably watch this while you balance your checkbook, but if you like cheesy low-budget horror there's plenty worse.

From the start I was irritated by Nicole Kidman's performance as the lead character in this. When she doesn't have some definite emotion to convey, like anger or terror, e.g. in a plot set-up scene, she can't carry it off. Moreover, she has to shoulder a great deal of the movie by herself, and I felt her pain a bit -- it looks like hard work.

It's not all bad however. The gimmick of the light sensitive children provides some embellishment and amusing filler. And it does have some creepy, spine tingling moments. The two children and the rest of the supporting cast give impressive performances.

This as a haunted house/ghost story with only one arrow in its quiver. It's set in the 40's, and reminds one of the pulp magazines filled with such stuff around that time. It has that lurid, somewhat tasteless feel of a story scribbled out at 2 cents a word.

Every once in a while a movie comes along that's about something, and this is one of them. It's intense and for the most part riveting. It's high rating on IMDb is well deserved.

It's weak points, though few, are unfortunate -- making it a really good movie instead of a classic for the ages. Edward Norton as the Derek the skinhead who goes all the way and then sees the light was a bit too intelligent and sensitive to be fully believable. (Perhaps it was because I just saw him recently in Fight Club, and kept seeing a yuppy under the muscles and Nazi tatooos.) Avery Brooks as the black mentor I didn't like much -- he seemed to be a bit too smirky, as though he had all the answers. Also the ending was predictable and a bit overblown. In general toward the end the movie begins to lose its grip, shifting safely into the politically correct. The effect is a sense of betrayal of the gritty reality portrayed earlier. It didn't have to spell out a message -- we already got it.

The really standout performances are all by secondary characters: Stacy Keach as the manipulative organizer, Fairuza Balk as Derek's neo-nazi's girlfriend, Guy Torry as the fellow prisoner who helps Derek come around.

A superficial and monotonous narrative supposedly about some books written by Lucifer himself which have the power to materialize him and bestow demonic powers. Throughout the movie, which features the satanic book predominantly, you're wondering what the text says exactly. This is never revealed for the simple reason that what could it say? Rape, pillage, loot! Yeah! It contains engraving which are apparently of key importance, but none of it is really tied together meaningfully or convincingly. Depp is badly miscast as a rare books dealer, he's too young and pretty. They give him facial hair and glasses, have him smoke and drink constantly, but it doesn't work. At first assigned to find these satanic volumes, he is later apparently self-motivated in his own quest for evil power. None of it is believable, or, if you are generous with your suspension of disbelief, interesting on the level of a thriller. Depp's acting is bad (sex scenes are ludicrous), but it's not his fault. It is entirely unclear what his motivation is supposed to be, and later in the movie, his behavior is so lacking in foreshadowing it makes sense only on the most superficial level. The rest of the characters are even more 2-dimensional. Polanski obviously has great technical skill but here at least, no sense for either story or character.

I like a good slasher as well as any closet psycho, but at least some attention to rationality and realism -- beyond spurting tomato sauce -- would be nice. If you're going to make a movie in which the plot consists basically of that fact that all the people are murdered in one location then at least you could make the murders look good. For example, do death right. Two basic steps: First the victim struggles for a while, then the victim goes limp -- hopefully not too aggressively limp -- after which they should not move. In this movie a woman has her throat cut, gurgles for a while, then goes appropriately limp -- but continues to breath normally. Hey, *dead people don't breath*. I suppose it's comical in a way, but I just found it annoying. A subsequent closeup of her supposedly dead face clearly shows a healthy pulse beating under the gory makeup. Did they even look at this movie when editing it? After this kind of sloppiness, you feel you have to squint to enjoy it.

Anyway, some of the reviewers have commented that there was a high body count -- 13. (There were also at least 5 different murderers.) In my opinion the body count could have been higher, since all you were doing was waiting for the next murder. Why wait? For the plot? Bah! Somebody ought to make a movie that's just one murder after another, so as soon as one guy goes limp, THWACK! there goes another one. What is this figleaf of a plot thing. Give me 90 minutes of pure stabbing, shooting, chopping, garroting, and heck ... crushing, grinding, dissolving, whatever! You might get 40, 45 murders into one of these things. Now that would be a classic!

We've come a long way from Jaws and ET, and that's not a compliment. Here the slick commercial hollowness of most of Spielberg's work finally ruptures releasing a long, drawn out stream of hot air. Whew, open a window. Really, the only question you need to ask yourself is how much would you pay to see the special effects, because both the philosophical underpinnings and the storyline fall completely flat.

Well, perhaps not completely. In the beginning there are some good scenes where the robot boy's limitations are examined. Then later there is a somewhat disturbing scene where futuristic Luddites take revenge on the humanoid "mechas" (robots) -- quite well done. Also the robot gigolo, played to the hilt by Jude Law, is almost believable even in close up, and certainly likeable. Unrobotically illogical, but heck, fun.

Anyway, a movie is not made from great scenes or individual characters, it has to pull together. This movie lacks an overall concept. Instead of moving forward, it phase shifts into a series of alternate realities. In the end you wonder ... where is the end? Are we there yet? It would be interesting to know how this project was greenlighted when the story was so poorly conceived. That's why I say it's a far cry from Jaws or ET. Hey, in ET the alien went home, in Jaws they killed the giant shark. That's how you end a movie. Here the little robot boy just keeps going and going -- somebody pull out his energizers, *thank you*!

(Brian Aldiss, a true artistic visionary amoung sci-fi writers, should be embarrassed to have his name even indirectly associated with this work.)

"So do you believe in God now?" his therapist asks him. "Not if everyone dies alone," replies Donnie.

Is each person ultimately alone? This movie takes you into the mind and heart of a person who has realized he's alone. Most movies take you to the other place, to the place where people are not alone, where the hero, facing dangers with courage, strong in the knowledge that in the end he will defeat the enemy and win the girl and be taken into the bosom of the community and loved and cared for and never be alone again. That's the fantasy we pay for, because real life is the opposite. In real life we are not the hero, we do not win true love, and the world does not take us into its bosom and care for us.

Comments on the movie suggest this is about a schizophrenic teenager, but that is not actually what the movie says. His therapist says that, but as things unfold it is not clear whether Donnie is halucinating or seeing a deeper reality. In fact his visions seem to come when he takes his medicine (which he's being hounded to do), so maybe it's his medicine that's making him see things. But is it madness or something else? Quantum physics maybe?

Well, that's a detail. Really it's the mystery of human existence: no one is inside our skin but us; reality is how we perceive it, human mythologies and science notwithstanding. How did that happen? Of all the horrors perpetrated upon living beings by God or the cosmos or whatever, what could be more horrible than to condemn each being to its own reality? Then again ... would could be more beautiful? When it's *your* time to die, do you want to be surrounded by those you love, by their pity and fear, be forced to comfort them as they contemplate their own inevitable end? Again in a session with his psychiatrist, Donnie tells her what happened with his pet dog. "It crawled under the porch," he says. "To die," states the therapist. "To be alone," says Donnie.

The creation of a movie about that (at least that's what I thought it was about) seems very ambitious. Yet there are no vagaries, no discontinuities, no flashbacks or other trickery, and the story unfolds quite logically, at times with Donnie appearing demonic, at other times humorously, but always with an assortment of interesting characters that each fit into the plot like pieces of a puzzle. Wonderful acting by all the cast. Just think how far Drew Barrymore has come since ET. That's weird too.

A little slow getting started in my opinion because the self-absorbed, cynical British writer/protagonist (Kenneth Branagh) did not initially make me think, this is someone I want to see a story about. Nor did he make me think, this is going to be a funny movie. I assumed it would be a story about something he did, rather than a story about what happened to him, and hence I wasn't much interested. His glib remarks about this and that I found only mildly amusing, and no signals were being sent about say murder, a terrorist bomb, a sexual conflict, or anything else that spoke PLOT. I was thinking, this is some indie drivel where we're supposed to be amused by this guy's sour view of life -- and that's it. (Speaking of which, at one point the protagonist's wife compares him to Andy Rooney.) Unfortunately the title contributes to this misunderstanding by suggesting a cynical comedy about how this guy overcomes the people (or animals) around him. HOWEVER ... about 30 minutes in I began to realize that what I disliked about the main character *is* the plot, the story problem, and at that point I started to get it.

Why isn't this film more popular? It's not so much a problem with the film, which is true to itself, but with audience expectations. Those of us who feed regularly at the mainstream trough don't necessarily expect such subtle (though universal) issues are going to be the point. It's like Charlie Rose when you're used to Crossfire. And of course there's no sex, or violence, or special effects -- with one exception (see title) -- anyway nothing that would catch your eye on a movie poster. Spielberg's "AI" makes a good contrast; on a similar topic, it has all the eye-popping glitz possible (if you have $100 million or so), but storywize it's simplistic and unfocused. This has a great story and nothing more -- but guess what, that's enough.

This intriguing old black and white horror flick pits a square-jawed American scientist/sceptic against a chubby, weak-chinned, and affable British cult-leader who, to the American's dismay, actually possesses supernatural powers (a fact revealed to the audience from the start). Source of tension: the American's profoundly-held scepticism has to crack if he's going to save himself. The movie is situational and psychological rather than graphic; very little action, no sex, and the violence is minimal. You could pretty much enjoy it as a radio show. It lacks the layering of Hitchcock (and the contrivances perhaps), but has a similar feel. The special effects are terrible but represent only a small part of the movie. There are some great scenes where the subtle cult leader and the straight-talking American exchange words -- and other things. Strikes interest and curiosity in you as much as "terror".

I guess this is the Coen bros version of Dumb and Dumber. Dumb is Jeff Bridges as Lebowski, a middle-aged boozing and dope-smoking burnout, and dumber is John Goodman, an emotionally disturbed Vietnam vet. Throughout I was uncomfortable with not only the premise of the movie, which is that stupid and pathetic people are inherently funny, but with the portrayal of those characters, which was either accurate to the point of being unpleasant (Lebowski), or annoyingly unconvincing (Walter the vet).

Realism has worked for the Coen bros in the past because they've made it amusing or startling. Here realism is stupid people with limited vocabularies saying f**k every other word. Someone ought to count the number of times the word is used, it's got to be a record. I have nothing against the word, it has it's place and can be a regular bon mot. But no word can be used that much and retain its meaning -- it just becomes a sound, an annoying sound, like a barking dog. The script must be fairly ugly to see, with that same all over it like a printer glitch or something.

Then, surrounding the two dipsticks, you have an assortment of poorly conceived oddballs who are supposed to provide both the color and the framework of the plot, such as it is. That this is their purpose is so transparent the purpose is defeated, and we seek in vain to be amused by them for some -- any -- reason. Their sheer number is meant to make up for their shallowness I think. We have a pedophile, a lesbian, an expensive whore, a couple of moron tough guys, some German nihilists, a porno King, a cripple, a geek (who Goodman shouts at to shut up every time he speaks -- oh, that's rich), a "fascist" cop, a creepy gay weirdo, a smirking kissass etc. What fertile ground for comedy, yet nothing grows there. At one point, after being drugged (which in Lebowski's case was redundant) and then hit in the head with a coffee cup, Lebowski tells a cab driver to change the music because he doesn't like the Eagles, and the guy throws him out of the cab. Oh, chuckle chuckle, thrown out of a cab hah-hah. It's all about as amusing as having a tooth drilled. Even the musical interludes with spacy dream graphics are tedious.

In summary: no good music, bad acting, boring plot and vapid script. To see this tripe in the top 250 along with movies like the original Planet of the Apes, or From Here to Eternity -- that's a mistake, all I can say. It must be all on Coen bros brand name alone. Either that or I f**king don't know what the f**k is going on, know what I mean?

Animation is for kids, right? Wrong. We're seeing the evolution of a new medium that can give voice to more diverse thoughts than either hand animation or film. This film makes you wonder what is to come in terms of super-real computer animation. Self-aware and knowing humor combined with eye-popping exploitation of the new computer capabilities makes this a delight on multiple levels. Presumably we are on the verge of an explosion of creativity since anything that can be imagined can be represented.

Delicious voice performances particularly by John Lithgow as the would-be King, and Cameron Diaz as the Princess. Eddie Murphy as the Donkey is ... shall we say not disappointing.

Like horror has blood. A tossed salad of scenes whose relationship makes only a klutzy kind of sense. Combine this with the worst directing, photography, sound effects, and music imaginable and you have some idea what you're in for. Night scenes too dark to see the characters. A woman screams but no sound comes out -- they forgot to add it. A zombie wraps his arm around someone and they scream and fall dead to the ground. A man being shot grabs his chest before the gun goes off. Or how about the score -- a psychotic killer is chasing a woman and her child with intent to kill, accompanied by swinging jazz. This chase scene incidentally is most of the movie, or seems like it, killer running, woman and child running, killer, woman, on and on ... Zombies and mad scientist plot elements are stuck onto it with spit and string. To say this is a cheesy horror film is to be generous. Someone said it had never been used on MST3K -- that's probably because they'd be putting more work into ridiculing it than the filmmakers did in making it.

This movie is too graphically and personally violent (and the violence goes on too long), the squalor is too squalid, the grit too gritty, the plot too twisted, and the message basically retarded. But it's a truly great flick, especially if you can appreciate it for what it is. It's a rant. One doesn't take rants seriously, one appreciates them for style, vigor, angst, and in fact for their very absurdity itself. The spirit of the rant is Quixotic, it's "we're not going to take this anymore" when you know perfectly well you're going to take it more and then some. You're leaving rational discussion behind. You're banging your head against the wall to prove you really mean it.

It's fantasy, like all good movies. We, the rational and reasonable audience, are allowed to vicariously go over the edge, and we shall be brought back, by some means -- don't worry -- and don't complain (you got back didn't you?). Meanwhile one enjoys the release from reason. "Just let go!" Durkin says to the narrator at one point. That's what this movie is all about, the fantasy of letting go. Perhaps some people feel threatened by this, because they're so bottled up they might wonder if they're headed up on some roof somewhere with a telescopic rifle. Don't worry, all of us know somebody we'd like to kill, or, say, punch really hard. Admit it! This movie speaks to that, but don't forget, it's only a movie. Brad Pitt is a consumer product, this movie is a consumer product and a good one. People reacting to the content of the argument miss the point -- a fact iteratively stored within the plot itself.

Fantastic direction especially.

This is like Mystery Science Theater where its funny because its witty, silly, kooky and mocking. This is parody: it's ridiculing something. Some people don't like humor at someone else's expense and are offended by it and don't see the point of it. Maybe they're just too nice, maybe they lack a mean streak. As far as being stupid Police Academy movies are stupid, this is not stupid. Nor is it as inane as Airplane! or Police Squad. Hey, it's not as inane as watching football. The added special effects, such as the fight with the cow and Tonguey break it up a bit, and are pretty well done. It is not mindless, though it may be intellectually and emotionally worthless, but that's different. If you go to the theater, don't take a sourpuss with you, they'll rag you all the way home. For what it is, it's 7/10.

This movie will do anything to get your laughs except be funny. This is humor as a form of torture. Many of your silly conventions, anxieties, and phobias are dissected for humorous potential. Humor here is finding something that discusts or abhors people and then purposely doing it. The only judgement required by the creators is in deciding how far is going too far, what absolutely cannot be touched (literally too). Hence it is a new tendril (or finger as it were) probing the ever-changing landscape of social inhibitions as they loosen and spread out. This movie is definately a post-internet movie: post alt.binaries.grotesque, post alt.binaries.erotica.bestiality,-bondage,-torture etc. etc. It is not porn, it is not horror, and it is not funny, yet you will be titillated, grossed out, and occasionally (to your own discust) amused.

If you like your horror with a little spice, and you're willing to take your plots with a grain of salt, this movie can be consumed as a tasty little treat. Thora Birch has just the right mix of pouty cuteness and a dumpy figure to play the love-obsessed and self-absorbed wanna-be on the edge of the cool crowd, out of reach of the super-popular and dreamy guy she wants. Bar some situation which throws them together. But the plot is secondary to the mood, which is the brand of horror arising out of obsession rather than out of the supernatural -- an everyday horror. Told in flashbacks, it contrasts a sunlit countryside and other posh settings with the gruesomeness of the hole. Ever wake up afer a serious night of partying and cringe at flashbacks of the night before? This movie has that feel. It can be uncomfortable. It makes you squirm in your seat as much as sit on the edge of it. The storytelling is complex, involving flashbacks and lies or delusions, and challenges the analytical to analyse, which perhaps distracts a bit. However the substance is juicy enough once it is unravelled. Rich spoiled Brit kids and the son of a rock star in for serious tribulations, a mysterious underground chamber, maggoty and realistic gore, and sex-obsessed girls with too much makeup -- what more can you ask for? Sick revelations? Bad, bad behavior? You got it.