Reviews

I'm assuming there's not going to be a lot of disagreement here, but any host that would put Preston Manning and Ron Jeremy on the same episode has to be a total jackass. At least Manning was funny about it in his memoirs, when he wrote that he just assumed Ron Jeremy was a washed-up hockey player until Landsberg mentioned that he was a porn star at the top of the show.

Plus, Landsberg's just a freak. Anyone remember the first show he did with Steve Austin, when he wanted Austin to beat him up and Austin kept refusing?

More classic Landsbergian ineptitude.

I know TSN's got a thin roster now that the NHL is locked out, but come on, there's gotta be something better than this they can produce.

Firstly, my opinion towards this endeavour is quite biased by the fact that I love Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Holmes in the Granada series. He - and the whole production - made for me the ideal shift in medium between literature and television. I love the books as books, and I love the small screen version as television. I think Conan Doyle's message in Hound has been carried faithfully forward in this production, or at least as much as is possible when going to television from literature.

Yes, the production is slow at times: so is the book. And therein lies this story's particular charm; it is to be savoured, like a fine cigar with cognac, not to be devoured like a Big Mac meal. Both have their own unique charm, and are to be appreciated in their own unique way. Hound is to be savoured, to be meditated upon, its taste becomes rich and appreciated only after examination. And it is in this vein that it must be appreciated. It is, admittedly, difficult to appreciate this sort of production in our society, but at least this production brings us back to a time when the viewer must interact and work along with the production to appreciate it fully. Which is not unlike the book itself; and it is an ingenious accomplishment to take not only the raw content of the book and film it, but to take the very underlying unspoken mystique of the book, and capture that on celluloid as well.

On these counts, this production succeeds magnificiently. I encourage everyone to watch this, but not just to watch, but involve yourself in it. Beyond the genius of the film mentioned above, Holmes and Watson are depicted magnificiently, and the sets are quite good; dismal, bleak and unappealing in the country, and (what I imagine is) Victorian England come alive again in the scenes from London.

This is not a slam against Mike Bullard. Off this show, the guy's hilarious. He MC'd a fundraiser in Guelph a couple of years ago and had everybody in stitches. People still talk about it, and he was very generous to donate his time to the event. But this show has to go. It's just so bad it's beyond words. He's not a bad interviewer, but the audience usually gives him nothing to work with and his monologues rely upon audience participation. The problem is, is that they're usually so bad nobody would ever want to participate and interact with them. And it's a shame, because in other fori Mr. Bullard is a pretty good comedian.

Excellent film!!! I was captivated by it, however, my wife fell asleep during the film. For those who enjoy Russian literature, this movie will captivate you; for those who have no exposure to it, it will not. So your preestablished experience will determine to a great extent your appreciation of this film.

The lead acting is superb! Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler are so good that they unfortunately show up everybody else. The setting, however, does not have much of a Russian feel to it, what with everybody trying to act French and all, which is very accurate to the time. (Thank *you* Peter the Great.)

As for the story, the movie is very faithful to the Pushkinian attitude. The story is very character-centred, typical to Russian lit. The change in Evgenyi Onegin (pronounced, "Yev-geh-ny Ah-nye-gin") is marked indeed. However, the character of Tatyana captivated me. Her faithfulness to herself and to her integrity, especially given the context of American film, is amazing. How refreshing to see a character turn down the opportunity to have an affair with the man she loves deeply out of loyalty and faithfulness to her husband whom she unfortunately doesn't really love. This is especially refreshing in light of prevailing attitudes towards marriage and in particular adultery. Liv Tyler portrays both the deep angst and yet the firm conviction of Tatyana beautifully.

I recommend this film heartily. I gave it a 10 in my rating, and I encourage anyone to view this film to escape the prevailing American Bruce Willis-type formula film, and allow this film to expand your perceptions and your mind, and to enjoy the challenge of seeing people grow, and thereby encourage yourself to do the same.

I can't believe they gave Leslie Neilsen second billing in this thing. I am obviously far too old for this genre of film, but my mother and I watched this because we both enjoy Leslie Neilsen. He's in the movie posters, but he's in the movie for like 15 seconds and has no impact on the plot whatsoever. He was hilarious when he was on, but he wasn't on long enough.

The film itself is not good. It was not a movie designed to expand pre-teens' perception of the world, or anything else. Overall, a weak effort from all involved.

I enjoyed the first couple of episodes of "The Critic", but after the first few it got really lame. I don't know whether it was because they sensed that the ratings were making the show swirl 'round the bowl, but whatever the cause, it just tried to get weirder and weirder. I really do think that this show was best suited to the occasional show as opposed to a 24-show season. It just didn't have the night-in-night-out consistency of writing, although the majority of the writing was hilarious.

Anyhow, after about the 4th episode I didn't really tune in any more. If I could get a few of the first on tape, I would do so. Those episodes were too much.

I'll be the first to admit that I loved Mike Myers on SNL and hated him ever since. So I am more favourably disposed to this movie than I have been the Austin Powers franchise.

What makes this movie is Myers' rendition of the family patriarch. I still quote the scenes when he riffs on "Heed", which is purely hysterical. The rest of the movie, in comparison, drags and is notoriously unfunny. If you're prepared for a movie that is intermittently funny, then by all means, watch it. If you're looking for a movie with memorable parts, then by all means, watch it. If you hate Austin Powers with a passion, and can't remember why Mike Myers is famous to begin with, watch it. If you're looking for something that's laugh-out-loud funny beginning to end, take a walk past this one.

To keep it brief, this movie was very funny, but like "Waiting for Guffman" (sp?), it tended to drag in parts. Perhaps my bias is fuelled by the fact that I was forced to watch every single feature put on the DVD at my friend's place, which was a little much.

Catherine O'Hara did an excellent job as the wicked wife of Eugene Levy, who himself was priceless. The scene of him walking uncomfortably with his dog, trying to stay balanced on his two left feet is not to be missed. This film, while funny, is best suited for a Canadian sense of humour, which is far more wry than that of Americans. However, it can be appreciated by the occasional American as well.

Overall, see it, but don't watch the DVD features before. Save those for like, 2 weeks later.

Hoo, boy. You might call watching this film Canadian Water Torture. This film has been advertised and pushed and promoted as a big-budget Canadian blockbuster film, has been given as much positive press as could ever be wished for, and all of it is completely unmerited. The trailers from the movie (now, this shows my gullibility for trusting trailers) didn't at all represent the movie. It seems as though the scenes they used for the trailers were made for a different movie, but inserted in this one so they wouldn't have to show the public what the movie was really like.

The plot could simply be summarized as unlikeable losers making a mockery of themselves and, from time to time, an otherwise fine sport, curling. There are some funny scenes where curling stones explode when thrown as hard as possible, but this is not much of a comedy, unless the thought of all that expense undertaken by Alliance Atlantis films to make this piece of garbage strikes the viewer as funny. Rather, this is a dark tale about people living very poorly. There is the one couple which has sex everywhere, publicly, just in the vain hope of reproducing. The audience is left hoping they don't succeed. One romantic subplot is the female proprietor of the town grill, who falls in love with the female police officer. This is presented as one of the cheerful byproducts of the unlikeable losers winning the curling tournament.

Paul Gross stars as the unlikeable star of the film. The height of his unlikeableness comes when, trying to drown out his memories of curling failure, he buys a beer stein and the bar TV from the bartender, only to hurl the stein into the TV. I'm sure it only took about 40 takes for him to get it right. He is also presented as being the Canadian love machine of the millennium, having two sisters fall for him and having to earn their love.

This film also marks the further downward spiral of Leslie Neilsen into complete senility and unfunniness. Yet studios keep using his name, more than his abilities, as drawing power. Wearing a beard to cover his now numerous liver spots, he fails to evoke any laughs as Paul Gross's father and the team's coach.

Although the film's central point is presented as curling, it doesn't figure very prominently into the movie. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Hoosiers presents Gene Hackman's character more prominently than basketball to great effect. This however is not the case here, as none of the characters have any heroic or positive virtues, and therefore should take no prominent position in any storyline, except perhaps as laughingstocks. I trust this is what the filmmakers had in mind, except they ended up more as objects of scorn and hatred than loveable ne'er-do-wells.

The rest of the film, luckily, I don't seem to remember too well. I do remember hating every second of it, and now I am prepared to launch a lawsuit on Alliance Atlantis for slander, having done more to ruin the reputation of our great land than Jean Chretien and Sheila Copps put together.

This is a piece of cinematic beauty, and it shows more of Quebec culture to others than probably any other work to come from la belle province. It takes everybody into a first-person experience of the culture, to the point that you wish you glued your hair in place and lived, breathed, and ate everything Maurice Richard. The book does this as well as the short, and I'm glad that in all the time I did spend studying French in high school, this was required reading in both languages.

I thought it was brilliant to have Roch Carrier narrate this story. His molasses-thick accent brought a lot of realism to the story. The animation was good, as well, very surrealist, which brings attention to the idea of this being a whimsical daydream, fancying over better days gone by.

Again, as a symbol of culture quebecoise, this is unsurpassed. One can almost smell the tourtiere being cooked slowly over a wood stove. This whole film deserves endless praise for making people proud to be Canadian, and encourage us all to appreciate the finer things of family and our roots. I'm from Ontario, and this film made me fall in love with Quebec. Maurice Richard va toujours vivre dans nos coeurs.

Let me start off by saying that I am a HUGE MST3K fan. Let me also say that I never saw their treatment of this film because I'm a Canadian and consequently don't get SCI-FI, and I haven't been able to do much tape trading for some of these episodes yet. I expect that it would be hilarious. Let me also say that I am studying Russian area studies in university, and actually watched the original Russian version.

Firstly, I thought its plot wove together many diverse aspects of Russian folk tales into one new tale. No such tale, of course, was ever compiled by Afanas'ev. However, the use of magic, ultimate triumph of good versus evil, etc. is all textbook Russian folk tales.

I was thrilled to see Baba Yaga and her house - not that her house wasn't really a guy in a suffocating house custom prancing around. It was - bad effects aside - exactly as I had pictured it. Roasting Baba Yaga after asking her how to be shoved properly into the oven was from another tale, I forget which one right now.

Anyhow, I thought that this film would have been excellent for Russian children even with the terrible special effects. There is pride in seeing your native culture display itself, and I thought that Morozko did an excellent job of representing Russian folklore tradition. (And no, MST3K fans, "Final Sacrifice" did not display my Canadian culture.)

Overall, for an individual who is informed about Russian culture, this would be laughable, but enjoyable. For someone who is not...yekh.