Reviews

I like dark movies. I like porn. I thought "Deed Poll" was a good combination. It was. A hustler's getting killed for sexual stimulation.

Pro: André Schneider's fine performance gave me the chills and Rainer-Maria Wittenauer was pure eye-candy. The fact that we get to see an erection a great bonus. The cameraman did a good job. The whole thing is well-written.

Contra: Barbara Kowa's overacting annoyed me. She's wearing a terrible wig and is hysterical throughout the movie. The whole Ivy character is horrible! The sound quality is poor, poor, poor! Why couldn't they afford a better sound system?

All in all: a good movie, made under very bad circumstances, with a great plot, a good ending, and a bad leading lady.

"In The Mood For Love" is a love story without love, a romance without romance ... a unique masterpiece by Wong Kar-wai, the director who dazzled cinema audiences with movies like "Happy Together" (another strained relationship) and who became famous for his fast editing.

This movie, though, is incredibly slow-moving (matter-of-factly, this is Kar-wai's "slowest" movie). His director of photography (Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who photographed almost every Kar-wai movie) kind of "painted" every shot in this heartbreakingly beautiful drama. Everything, the setting, the make-up, the clothes, the dialogue, the light, and (first of all) the soundtrack, is just incredibly beautiful. You can't take your eyes off the screen. Tony Leung won the best actors' award in Cannes for his brilliant performance, and Maggie Cheung is equally good as the betrayed neighbor.

Go and watch it in a big cinema if you can. 10 out of 10!

Let me just say that without Johnny Depp's performance this would only be a so-so adventure film by Gore Verbinsky (who did an amazing job with "The Ring"). But Depp was never as powerful and funny as in this picture, and he's supported by some fine actors like Geoffrey Rush and British newcomer Keira Knightley.

A great disappointment, though, is Orlando Bloom's so-called acting. After his overrated debut in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, he chose to change bow and arrow against swords. He's decidedly lovely but utterly deadpan, his lines come out badly (how did he ever manage to go through acting school?), and his performance as Will Turner is quite clumsy. One wonders what he will do in a part that requires no fight scenes...

In one interview, Tippi Hedren once stated that, in order to raise money for her big cats, she would take any part that's offered to her. That explains why she did many of the movies she did in the 1990s, and it is not up to us to judge her for that.

Well, as for this movie: It must be one of the worst movies EVER made! Miss Hedren does her best to save this ship from sinking, but she fails due to the lack of scenes and a badly written script. There isn't ANYTHING good about this movie. (The talents of the actors are wasted here, everyone involved has never been as bad as in "The Birds II: Land's End". The photography, the "special effects", the editing... BAD, BAD, BAD!) The director must have been sleeping!

If you can avoid this film, please do so, you'll spare yourself a huge disappointment. 1 out of 10.

A forgettable spy movie, with Dean Martin in one of his worst performances.

There's not much to say about it at all, but the film is certainly worth a look for Sharon Tate's funny performance: She steals every scene she's in with her beauty and comedic timing! A pity she left us so soon, because she could have become a great silver screen comedienne (like Carole Lombard in the late 30s, for instance). The character of Felicity Shagwell in the "Austin Powers" movie was based on Sharon's character in "The Wrecking Crew".

Silly, sometimes funny spy spoof with some colourful sets, beautiful ladies (Tate, Elke Sommer, Nancy Kwan and Tina Louise) and beautiful dresses.

"Valley of the Dolls" is one of the best bad movies of the sixties, very entertaining in parts, and with a great score (which was nominated for an Academy Award back in 1968).

I think the weak acting was a result of Mark Robson's careless direction. The three leads, Parkis, Duke, and Tate, have all their bright moments in this movie, but they're just MOMENTS. Any of their characters are convincing, but at least poor Tate does a fair job (considered her lack of experience) as Jennifer, the film's most sympathetic character. It's Miss Hayward's performance, though, that steals the movie.

Otherwise this movie has a ridiculous story, a more-than-questionable message, trashy-looking sets, unintentional laughs, bad dialogues and pretty much the worst photography I've ever seen in a major Hollywood movie (it makes any daily soap look like a piece of art!).

I must admit that I haven't seen Tobe Hooper's 1974 TCM (it's still on the Black List in Germany), and I didn't know too much about it, so Marcus Nispel's version was an entirely new movie for me. (Okay, I saw a movie with Renée Zellweger from the 1990s, but don't get me started on that one.)

The movie scared the hell out of me! I sat there on my seat as if I were trapped in hell for an hour and a half. Nispel's TCM is extremely well made; the atmosphere, setting, art direction, music, editing, and photography re-presents film art at its finest here. And even the acting was good (which is not very often the case in this kind of movies, you must admit); Jessica Biel gave an extraordinarily intriguing performance, and so did the handsome Mike Vogel (can't wait to see him in another movie, he's incredibly hot!), not to mention Jonathan Tucker from "The Deep End" and "The Virgin Suicides".

All in all, I gave this movie 8 out of 10 and can highly recommend it. A beautifully made horror shocker!

There isn't much to say at all except that I can highly recommend this movie: It's witty, charming, entertaining, and very cute.

Monica Potter (a sort of Julia Roberts, but in a nice sort of way, without Julia's evil eyes) plays a girl who lacks luck with men and moves in with a bunch of supermodels (watch out for Ivana Milicevic's performance; she steals every scene she's in!). She falls in love with Freddie Prinze Jr. (who was never as cute as in this movie) whom she suspects to be a psycho killer. (Everything turns out fine for them, of course.)

If you're looking for a good Saturday evening entertainment, this is the right movie for you.

While part one and two were highly entertaining and watchable, the trilogy's last part, "The Return of the King", failed completely to engage.

Peter Jackson's changes were understandable in the first two movies, but here he lost everything: the plot, the message, and even the actors: Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen gave good performances as usual, the "hobbits" did a great job, but the characters of Gimli and Legolas, already badly neglected in part one and two, have practically disappeared. Bloom and Rhys-Davis didn't even get a small chance to prove their acting abilities here. (There's also no believable reason for deleting Christopher Lee's scenes.)

The technical side of the movie is again pretty good, but this time it's the only reason to watch it. A pity!

Can a short be overlong? Yes, it can!

Simon Groß has made a short film without a story and without atmosphere. The performances are forgettable, and so is the technical aspect. His first movie was much better.

Unfortunately, this is one of the most underrated films in movie history. As a matter of fact, it's almost forgotten nowadays, because it was a flop when it came out in 1966.

Jules Dassin's fourth film with his wife, Melina Mercouri, is a slow-moving, poetic love triangle: Maria and Paul, a couple in their forties, travel through Spain with a mutual friend, Claire (played by Romy Schneider), and their daughter. On their way to Madrid, they come through a village where a man has just shot both his wife and her lover. Maria, who has realized that her relationship with Paul has changed, wants to help the murderer...

One of the most surprising twists in the plot is the lesbian relationship between Maria and Claire. Maria wants to catch Claire in Paul's arms, and in a delirious state of mind she dreams about it. The scene in the shower with Mercouri and Schneider is pretty unexpected, though.

The cinematography is just stunning, Mercouri's acting is divine, and Romy Schneider was never as pretty as in Dassin's drama. It's hard to find, but it is a must-see movie!

I only watched the movie because of the great cast: Romane Bohringer, Ute Lemper, and Clément Sibony. They all deliver good performances, and Lemper has some sexy moments, but the direction was virtually non-existent.

A messy collection of scenes, lavishly set, but utterly boring because you cannot find your way through the different plots. A pity!

"Dinner Rush" has not been released in Germany --- which usually indicates a not very successful B-movie... In this case, it is a B-movie (shot in only 21 days!), but, uuhhh baby, it is one of the best B-movies ever made.

Elegant camera movements, a superb ensemble cast (Danny Aiello, John Corbett, Edoardo Ballerini, Vivian Wu, Sandra Bernhard, Mark Margolis, and beautiful Summer Phoenix), an intriguing story, marvelously directed ... they usually don't make movies like that anymore. Bob Giraldi did an excellent job with his actors, and production designer Andrew Bernard created a stunning atmosphere.

"Dinner Rush" ranks among my all-time favorite films. It might be not suitable for everyone, but then, what movie is? It's an entertaining, witty, thoughtful portrayal of New York of the millennium --- enchanting!

... this movie is thought-provoking. I really can imagine that it was discussed widely when it was released in the mid-70s. An interesting question: What can you do when there's any help at all? How do can you get even with someone who's taken everything you cared for?

Unfortunately, about 30 years after it was shot, "Death Wish" looks like a very cheap made-for-TV thriller. The editing, the camera and lightning; it all is very poorly made.

One of the greatest disappointments of the movie is Bronson's dull acting. It takes away of the most important things this film would have needed: Sympathy for the main character. His violence does not seem motivated (even though the spectator knows what has happened), because he delivers a totally unconvincing, emotionless performance.