Reviews

Apart from the Texas-sized loopholes in the script, this film is one of the corniest horror films I have ever watched. Stephen King is credited as one of the writers, and this is surprising to see as it is unclear if he has actually contributed to the script or this film was inspired from King's initial novel. The acting is quite mediocre, but the special effects are of record tackiness, with human puppets of the amazing quality of voodoo dolls. The gore factor is satisfying, even unexpectedly high. The reference to environmental issues as a contemporary premise to any evil we see on screen is flimsy and ephemeral. Overall, spare a few bucks to rent this on a Saturday night in with your friends and pizza.

This can be considered as another fairy tale but with lots of twists: No colors, or color busted scenes, it's all in black and white. The characters save each other. They are continually on the road, traveling from one city in Europe to another and from one bridge to another.

Filmed entirely in black/white, the eye is not focused on the panoramas but on the characters themselves. Especially the knife-throwing scenes are quite craftily edited. The acting is quite well, and Vanessa Paradis is a surprise, she can actually act apart from singing. The soundtrack is very gripping.

To sum up: Girl on the Bridge is a road movie about love and luck which starts on a bridge in Paris and ends on another bridge in Istanbul.

This is the last of the Flesh-Trash-Heat trilogy, and my favorite among the three, with its plenty one-liners, stunning acting, lots of flesh showing (tamer than the other two though) and quite sad background.

This is quite different from its prequels in acting, script and camera use. Heat actually has a plot, the actors including Joe Dallessandro are very good and the camera moves, instead of being stable.

Loneliness lurks everywhere, in the forgotten old star's delusion of still having loads of fans, in the ex-child star's dreams of settling down honorably, and all the other inmates of the run-down motel.

After Flesh, this is the second of the Flesh-Trash-Heat trilogy of the Joe Dallessandro-Andy Warhol-Paul Morrissey collaboration. This is much more pacier than Flesh, and it has more solid conversation although obviously the actors have again been left on their own to improvise. The context is much more specifically set than Flesh again (thanks to better editing I guess), and the mood is darker and gloomier.

The transvestite Holly Woodlawn is truly grand as the lost and desperate girlfriend who is helplessly in love with the impotent drug addict Joe.

Trash is also more critical about the state of the American nation in the 60's.

This is truly a beautifully structured and of course masterfully directed and played movie. Right from the first few scenes, it grips the viewer and throws him into a web of technological and political traps.

Being a political thriller, Blow Out never falls into the trap of being too confusing (like de Palma's Untouchables), too pretentious (Mission to Mars) or too long.

Especially the end scene with July 4th celebrations in the background very successfully places the decadence dilemma of the whole movie: truth or dare.

Because this flick is the first feature fruit of a long lasting collaboration between Paul Morrissey, Andy Warhol and Joe Dallessandro, it is too much obvious that it was mostly made for having fun among themselves. The script is quite loose, the dialogues are too obviously improvised, one even suspects that there probably is no script at all, just thematic concepts: prostitution, addiction and poverty (which all seem to continue in the following films Trash and Heat).

Joe Dallessandro reveals unashamedly his gorgeous body at any chance, to the hungry eyes of other addicts (not only drug addicts).



Although the whole film seems like amateurish, especially the scene with other hustlers at the park is very intriguing, like a documentary project.

I would not recommend to see this by itself, but watching the trilogy (Flesh, Heat and Trash) altogether will be much enlightening.

This was one of the saddest and most heartbreaking movies I have ever watched. The tone, the colors, even the camera angles suggested an inevitable, sad ending to the world as we know it.

Both Clare Danes and Joaquin Phoenix were brilliant as parties of a hopeless love affair, trapped between doomsday and bad guys. I guess it should be really difficult to ever make a movie again like this lamenting love, world and maybe "civilization".

This is a beautiful, artful film that will move everybody, but unfortunately it uses every single possible trick to be a tearjerker for the average movie-goer. The music is fine, the acting also, no need to mention that the prodigy boy is especially skillful, but the father needs to be praised also. It is a shame that the director Chen Kaige misses the opportunity to turn the movie into a real film by using all kinds of cliches and escaping into the trap of predictability. Everyone who had once argued with their father and still has an issue is sure to cry at the end of the film. All in all, tasty, but not new.

Madame Sata is one of the most colorful, agitating, controversial, shifting, restless, erratic films you could ever watch on silver screen. The protagonist is also the antagonist with his often irrational and aggressive behaviour, possibly a trademark of Joao Francisco himself on which the film is based on, although this could be one of the film's flaws. The characters are as lively and colorful as he is and the acting is quite well, too.



An activist and a pioneer in many ways in the Brasil of 1930's, he could be seen as a gay activist, a transvestite activist, a swinger activist, a one-man-show pioneer, a strong, willful, self-confident and proud individual who defies almost all possible rules, regulations and conventions of his time, and not because he wants to be standing out.



Although the story line and Francisco's character are quite fanciful and interesting, the dialogues seem to be pretentious, the character build-up insufficient and the editing quite confusing, causing the overall feel to be incomplete and puzzling.

I have not seen the other previous versions of Devdas, but as far as this Devdas goes, I can say that it is really difficult to transform such an old and popular story into such an amazing film without being boring, and the director has successfully managed this task.

The set decorators, choreographers and the costume designers must be lauded very very highly. It is truly amazing and a real pleasure to just even observe these three elements. Of course, Aishwarya Rai (Parvati) is so incredibly beautiful, the camera loves her, and she sparkles like a diamond. Still, (also credited above Aishwarya) Madhuri Dixit (Chandramukhi) is the real acting talent.

I had great pleasure watching this lyric melodrama, although it lasted about three hours, it deserves all kinds of appraisal.

Campfire is basically a coming out story, but essentially it summarizes many itches of love and relations. Settings, sound, music are all economically used, but without being minimal and boring. Cinematography is brilliant, and so is acting. All in this is a short but not small, powerful but not cliché film. Simply beautiful.

The Storm is so cheesy, so fake that it's not even funny to watch. Terrible special effects, not only feeling fake, but looking fake too. Aside of terrible acting, we get to watch unconvincing plot too. To summarise: a disaster movie with almost no casualties, and with a happy ending.

A comedy, not brighter than a sitcom, starring Ben Stiller and Robert deNiro. Not many things to comment on, except that the script seems like written by a team again, because there are tiny bits missing I believe.

Well Ben Stiller is again in trouble, except that he has no "hair gel" to meddle with, instead the father of his fiancee, who is almost paranoidly obsessed with his daughter, and the family cat. Not a bit of improvement on acting skills in Stiller's compartment, De Niro is the same, shining and leaving the audience in sheer curiosity: why does he act in these ludicrous movies?

If there are no movies to go and see other than this, OK; but if you have time and an alternative to "Meet The Parents", just wait until they release it on tape, rent it, just laugh through it, and forget about it in an hour.

This truly is the worse film I have ever seen. The music, the acting, the "special" effects, the aliens, the lighting, the camera, the plot, the script are terribly loose, with no integrity at all and confusing. The film overall is so bad, it can't even get funny. I tolerated till the end, and all I got was a terrible headache.

The biggest success of this Turkish movie, a big hit thanks to its popular stars, is that it is the sole film ever made on one of the darkest and least openly discussed era of Turkish history. The mandatory "super tax" imposed in 1940s on everyone, but most exercised on the non-Muslims was publicly made known to the Turkish people through the eye of a female director, experienced in making documentaries for the Turkish state TV.

The dialogues, the acting and some of the landscapes are truly amazing, but the sound department fails.

With its ups and downs, this movie will still be one of the best and the most controversial Turkish movie in 1999.

Yes, one has to admit, The Matrix is maybe "the" representative of the new-millenial hype-action movie. It is a well acted, well directed, well "designed", and obviously well thought movie. There should be no doubt that the action movies of the 2000s will more or less look like, feel like, sound like and be flashy like The Matrix, IF the producers have enough money as the Wachowsky brothers.

So what's disappointing? Everyone left the theater feeling dizzy and confused, having conversations over their personal pseudo-lives and the ambivalence and vagueness of their perceptions of reality. Keanu Reeves as Neo and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus dazzled the audience with their superb acting. Carrie-Anne Moss became every guy's dream date (watch the Jiu-Jitsu moves!). But.... but The Matrix is so close to being just the pumped-up, pretentious, expensive, star packed candidate of the "Kafkaesque Action Movie of the New Millenium", thanks to Dark City. It was so frustrating not hearing anyone mention this romantic prototype of the parallel world/deceived citizens plot. And, oh! That absolutely cliché, and almost stupid ending with that mindless and laughable monologue! Now that would be more suitable with a 70s low-budget space adventure.

Yes, one must confess that The Matrix is truly and certainly good. It is indeed mind and eye boggling. But, it is not *the* movie after all. For a refreshing retrospective, Dark City by Alex Proyas and Bound by the Wachowsky brothers is strongly recommended.

I would have preferred something stronger for my Saturday night movie, but I don't feel betrayed either. I just am indecisive about whether to judge this movie as a parody of cliche journalist-saves-death-row-prisoner films or as a representative of such cliche films. Nevertheless, I was amused by brilliant dialogues, hated lousy acting, especially by a way old Eastwood, loathed the totally unconvincing and unbelievably clumsy "green pastures" metaphor, and overall, thought I saw another one of those ordinary Hollywood movies.

Apart from the fact that the whole idea was actually borrowed from another movie made years ago, I was appalled at the way the director handles all (I mean all) situations as if they were booby traps undermining our family values and our little but happy lives. The movie can be seen successful if a director unveiling his ideas so overtly and obviously is forgiven in that sense. I was almost disgusted to see the same schemes as in Se7en, the same grayish green colors, even the same rain. I was angry with myself to have been watching Nicolas Cage, after a disaster like The City of Angels. I loathed to see a placard reading "way strong" or "way hard to swallow" or something like that.

Although, I must admit that we had a quite fun with my friends right after the screening, joking over our little, pathetic, vicious, pornography touched lives, and happy that Nicolas Cage is returned home to his coward, pitiful wife who doesn't even have the courage to dump him forever after she leaves him. There's just one thing good about this flick, and that is the emerging star brother of River Phoenix, Joaquin (formerly Leaf)

I definitely did get more than I bargained for with Prince of Egypt. Very elaborately thought, this movie is a must, I say, for every kid who has ever heard of Moses and the Red Sea, and for everyone who wants to see a state-of-the-art animation film. Two scenes especially, cause gooseflesh: the slaughter of the firstborn and the opening of the Red Sea. With the Ten Commandments as the only movie before to depict these, it was eccentric to see an animation cause such emotions. One more thing worth mentioning; how can one make such a beautiful dream sequence? How can one reflect inner conflict so successfully?

Some say that Steven Spielberg payed tribute to his Jewish heritage with this animation. Well, they may not be wrong. But perhaps he was entrapped at the paradox between the Bible's depiction of Moses, the prophet, and his feelings probably as a child towards Moses, the Prince of Egypt, a human being with feelings and emotions. He is not to blame. Who would have thought before that the Pharaoh with whom Moses fought was the very guy who was Moses' step brother?

All in all, this film inevitably makes the viewer go home, grab the Bible and go over Exodus again. A standing ovation for Dreamworks, and pathetic remarks for Disney, for falling way behind their biggest rival.

Lastly, for those who have doubts about Hebrews working as slaves in Egypt, well, both the Bible and Quran say so, "if you believe".

Oh, and Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston are terrible performers with their song while Ofra Haza just beats them by herself. The difference is apparent.

Almodovar has always been the king of kitsch, the naughty, the pervert (who isn't anyway?), the generator of endless dirty language conversations, the good the bad and the ugly of the movie world. Well, he seems to have grown mature, but not tamed in that sense. He probably will be strongly criticized for the oral sex scene, on grounds that he is abusing disabled individuals, just like he was almost damned by feminists because of the looong rape scene in Kika. Well, although he seems to have moved away from his bright colors and chaotic chasing sequences, and although Live Flesh is to the best of my knowledge the first movie where he openly praises the post-Franco era, it was as tasteful as its predecessors. And who can build up such a web of events and relations better than Almodovar does, anyway?

The title suits well to this light and sometimes touchy comedy. It was thoroughly fun to watch, and scattered with bits and pieces of advice to parents from their offspring. The cast is precisely picked, and the kids are great. A perfect Sunday night movie.

Five prisoners are given permission to visit their homes, and they get on their ways. Once out, we discover that we all live in a big prison, on endless roads which start and seem not to end. All roads end. Eventually. Absolutely harsh, touching, fierce, itching and scratching, disturbing movie about reality. A must see for those who have their own cliché definitons of how a "road movie" must be like.

I actually would have been utterly and maybe incurably shocked if I had seen this movie if it weren't a remake. I was flabbergasted instead. Hitchcock was the prodigy of his period, and he proves to be still valid. The story (and the storyboard) belongs to him. And the movie *is* amazing. I have to admit though that the acting is much better than the original, although Anthony Perkins seems to have that psycho embedded in him, almost congenitally. The color picks are absolutely striking; I have to reconcile with van Sant in his thoughts that the "master" would have chosen the same color scales if the original were shot in color. The plot seems to be weak for today's gore and cheap psychology imposed viewer, and is no puzzle insoluble, but this doesn't stop the avid moviegoer from admiring the outstandingly deliberate way van Sant manages his project. It is obvious that not only Gus van Sant, but the whole crew has re-felt the emotions "Psycho" recalls and arises, and thus the originality and misunderstanding of the re-make.

But of course, I still couldn't figure out who I should praise more. Hitchcock or van Sant?

Stalin would have been quite ashamed of the commitment and virtual loyalty of his subjects if he had seen this movie. Unmistakably Russian, "The Thief" is one of the best movies of 1997. Set in the trains and various cities of the former Soviet Union, and almost enchanting through the immaculate acting of little Semya (Misha Philipchuk) this beautiful movie is worth every dime. And the moral? "Never trust a stranger, but nevertheless, if you find a father, don't let him go".