Reviews

Amazingly effective for a movie based on a comic book. There's an amazing depth to the characterization of Hellboy, no doubt in large part due to the superb talents of Ron Perlman in the lead role, and having John Hurt to play his adoptive father didn't hurt either. The story resonates on many levels, the love angle works brilliantly - the very passably mainstream girl he's in love with has her own issues to deal with.

AND the makeup and special effects are awesome, it really makes me wish I'd gone to see it on a big screen. I've been a huge stop motion fan since I was a kid, and the creature animation thoroughly ROCKS.

As with most prison movies, the setting is merely a vehicle for telling the story. Prison ain't like that; talking to a couple cons and ex-cons, or even, god forbid, doing a little research from printed material, would really go a long way.

That said, if this movie wasn't so poorly acted and mis-cast, this might have been more watchable, because the plot is interesting enough, exploring male roles and male sexuality. The problem is in the acting - it's dreadful. And the mis-casting of the antagonist - it is impossible to suspend disbelief enough believe he's a big bad sexual predator who could possibly over-power the protagonist, who is bulkier, more "butch", and more physically imposing.

I suspect the main culprit for these flaws is simply the era. I'm sure in 1971 it was impossible to find more qualified actors who would touch this kind of subject matter with a ten foot pole, for fear of torpedoing their careers. Times have certainly changed since then.

A better prison fable about male sexuality and male relationships is the HBO series OZ.

We've come a long way, baby.

An extremely quirky film that you won't mind watching with the kids. Not full of sappy platitudes, this strange little tale of a pig that wants to be a sheep dog is extremely effective in it's message without hitting you in the head with it. No doubt because it wasn't made in Hollywood... we Americans have never been good at telling children's stories without being condescending and heavy-handed with the moral message.

The story takes place in some fairy tale amalgam of all the rural cultures of the English-speaking world - Sometimes it seems like England, other times Kansas, Australia, New Zealand, it's really never anywhere particular. The acting is superb, the animatronics are unrecognizable as such, and James Cromwell is superb as the taciturn farmer willing to give the little pig a chance.

Child molestation, infidelity, ad infinitum. The movie was poorly written, woodenly acted, and cobbled together for the sole purpose of wallowing in human depravity. About all I got from this movie is that Todd Solondz believes "people suck." I already knew that.

Go refill your Prozac, and rent his brilliant "Welcome to the Dollhouse" instead, if you want a bleak, depressingly realistic view of life in the New Jersey 'burbs.

Since IMDb does not value brevity, the only thing left to say about this movie is, if you enjoy watching horror movies that are psychological rather than physical, you might enjoy this movie.

This show is great. The main character is very believable as an ordinary housewife with an extraordinary gift. The best ting about the show is the writing; the heroine is not infallible, neither is her husband. The two kids are also incredible. Neither of them is "precious" or precocious, they act like ordinary girls, and the little one is downright goofy, which makes here especially charming.

I have no idea why this show airs in the last hour of prime time, when there's very little to offend anyone. It's nowhere near as putridly disgustingly gory as any of the CSI shows which air in the middle time-slot. (Which I also love, but not for the gore)

Almost as amusing as the original stories, showed up on "Victorian Times" in the US on the then brand spanking new A&E cable station. My only complaint is that they downplayed the casual brutality present in the original, for modern audiences. It's a frikkin boarding school, and boys left to raise themselves can be monsters. Kipling didn't glamorize boys or boyhood, which is what made these stories so hilarious. These boys were subversive,and uninterested in following the herd, and that's why the real life models went on to achieve remarkable things in their lifetimes.

Sure wish this was available on DVD.

Terry Zwigoff directs this brilliantly black comedy that made me laugh so hard in spots I was choking and pissing myself. With a lesser cast and a lesser director this would have just been tasteless; instead, it's brilliantly humorous - Only Billy Bob Thornton could have made a sex-crazed alcoholic safe cracker in a Santa Suit who finds meaning in life when he beats the crap out of a 12 year old punk seem sympathetic. John Ritter was fantastic as the repressed uptight counter point to the rest of the cast, who take vulgarity to formerly unexpressed heights.

Mind you. If you're uptight, repressed, have no sense of humor, I imagine you'll just be horrified. And that's what makes this movie even more hilarious.

Gus Van Sant's NYC is eerily EMPTY, which I found profoundly disturbing. Although not particularly predictable, there were no surprises either. Washed up old white guy is redeemed by a brilliant, insightful black kid from the neighborhood. F. Murray Snape, I mean Abraham, was such a stock 2D racist snake-in-the-grass, it was hard to watch without laughing.

I'd call this movie Popcorn for the soul. I dunno as it really addresses any Big Cultural Issues (tm) or just makes liberal white folks feel a little more and and a little less guilty.