Reviews

The first rule of satire is that satire must be more self conscious than the material being satirized. The slipshod production of Spoils is far worse than any actual 70s mini-series. What Garth Marenghi's Darkplace has that this does not is it reveals the syntax of shoddiness: what bad, lazy, pompous film looks like, revealed by nuanced, subtle, detailed observation. The average 70s miniseries is much better made than this show. If you liked the concept of this show, but hated the lazy, stupid, derivative execution, I would recommend Danger 5, and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace as similar ideas done earlier and infinitely better.

This episode is not played for laughs, but instead uses the two best actors in the cast, William Schallert and Patty Duke, in an intense emotional conflict. Schallert thinks he has caught Patty in a lie. Patty Duke's reaction to her father's lack of faith in her is...profound and riveting.

After her legendary triumph in The Miracle Worker, a tortuous examination of the human will, someone decided this prodigy should do a sit- com...like making Shakespeare write toothpaste commercials ...Nevertheless, when given the opportunity to really act, as in this episode, Patty Duke reveals the depth of her astounding gift. In the final scene, in which Schallert sings Keemo-Kimo, Duke proves how transformative and essential forgiveness can be. If you get the chance, watch this episode, and appreciate.

What kind of person is Jude? does he have a love for Latin? Does he really want to be a scholar? What does he think of his wife Arabella? what is she like? Are we supposed to like her, dislike her? because...? because she is sensual? earthy? Is she too ignorant to be a good wife for Jude? Is Jude Smart? We see them have sex..and this means..? Not one scene has any development. Guy walks around in the rain, somebody tells a boy that education is everything...Is this Jude our hero? He is shown trying to memorize some Latin. How far has he progressed ...what does Classical literature mean to him? The viewer's emotions are not guided toward any coherent response ...scenes begin and end without discernible intention.

Lazy, incompetent film directing. Not thought through. Watch a film Like Hobson's Choice by David Lean, in comparison, and appreciate how every image, gesture, every object, conveys thoughts, character, intentions. Someone intelligent sat down and thought through what to show and how. Scenes with beginnings, middles, and ends and meanings and direction. This film is, by contrast, a lazy, stupidly unrealized piece of incompetence. Kate Winslet's performance, and the beauty of the locations are the only positive parts.

This movie is about color, rhythm, blossoms, visual wit, vibrant states of mind love, and being in love all over the place. And wonderfulness. No one since Charles Laughton has made faces as amazingly as the great Freddie Jones does here as the inspector. The level of film-making is the absolute top. In its own very different way, it is as well scored, composed, and photographed as a David Lean film, or something archly impressive like that. Quintessence of film art, really. But this movie couldn't be more unlike those movies. A visual equivalent of a great 60s pop music love song. The Beatles movies are less like Beatles songs than this tripped out valentine. An Overwhelmingly warm charming and dreamy psychedelic love trip. This movie hugs you and takes you to a place called nice.

Cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001) and a great score by Riz Ortolani, and New Vaudeville Band (those guys who did "Winchester Cathedral") were used perfectly in the soundtrack.

Patricia "Hyacinth" Routledge and John Cleese add to the fun.

What ruins this movie is that it is so over-rated.

The movie contains elements of Sergio Leone's style, and another great director of westerns, Budd Boetticher (both Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones speak like Randolph Scott). However. Leone's and Boetticher's movies are satisfying.

The Coens must have wondered: by deleting certain scenes, can we attain mystery, suspense... depth? I think that they succeeded --for some viewers-- because the movie did win best picture Oscar.

I would rather see a movie that is very good than one that pretends to be great.

I give it 6 stars mostly for Javier Bardem. What a relief from horrible holly wood(Cruise, Depp, etc.)

this movie contains parts of earlier movies within it(E.T., STARGATE, TERMINATOR, GODFATHER II, etc.) and yet... Shakespear's Hamlet was based on an earlier version by Kydd...so can it be discredited as derivative?

this film takes many Hollywood influences and weaves them into the final epiphany of cinematic success. the villain is brilliant, like Christopher Walken brilliant. The lead guy Myamoto, is almost Belmondo-ish cool. And the girl ...is ...the cutest thing on the planet. period! I won't stand for any badmouthin' 'bout Anne Suzuki. She's just the most sensational badass babydoll around!!!

the way they handled the parallel between Millie's brother and the alien (running with the blanket-swathed body) and the the way Myamoto shares the evil of the villain (shooting children) and finds his redemption by chance...

this movie will be around in 50 years...it has the perfection that only serendipity bestows on one production in a thousand

I watched this movie with male and female friends and we all found it outrageously funny and sexy. The women in the film expose their breasts and their comic acting abilities. It's a goofy send-up of Bond and the "orgasm machine" plot offers a lot of silly naked sexy goofy fun. Very refreshing to see something sexy that is not stupid, bad, or pretentious, just fun.

Beautifully directed crime/action film with great supporting cast (Defoe, Turturro, Dean Stockwell) almost completely ruined by twerpy, undramatic William Peterson. Yes, William Peterson, who would go on to...Well of course he washed up! look at him hopping around like a figure skater, with his collar turned up and his shades on. looks like Tony Dow imitating stallone. How, why did he get cast in this film? The two films that Peterson played the lead in, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA, and MANHUNTER, are both considered "underrated", well-made films that nobody went to see. Hmmmm.... The movie is still great, very absorbing and intense, but man! Wasn't there any one else around to play this part? Could you imagine Sean Penn or Eric Roberts in this part? The movie would have been a 10 of 10.

From the same people who made DRUNKEN WU TANG, and featuring some of the same characters, this is early 80s Hong Kong Kung fu, with blood-drinking demons, giant frogs, flaming fists, giant fire-breathing puppets, and a very surreal mumenchanz-like butt mask Kung Fu fight. Back flips and mayhem, a giant toad with glowing eyes and a tongue that stretches across the room and breaks a table, and a gruesome "walk on the nails" scene. whew.

At one point, the bad says: "Ha Ha Ha!!! I'm evil!!!"

Rat Face(the Drunken Toaist) drinks and fights with gusto, takes a sand shower, and always manages to survive to drink again.

If you like wilfully weird (Lewis Carroll, Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel) check this one out.

This is my favorite zombie movie.

Many Zombie movies are dumb, boring and poorly made, and only watchable to the die-hard Zombie fan. This one is completely the opposite. It is a good Zombie flick and a well-made movie too. The acting is very good, the story intriguing, the locations are beautiful. And yes, the Zombies are good too, and they get to do some graphic gut-munching.

This movie also has a lot of nostalgic retro appeal: the main character is a hippie dude, and the fashions are very early 70s, and the characters are bopping around through the UK countryside in a mini.

This is a first rate movie, and thoroughly enjoyable. The DVD looks super.

Compared to this. If you like action movies, and haven't seen this, well...what can I say? you've just been wasting your time. Hollywood has spent the last ten years trying to catch up with this film. This is the mother, the four horsemen of action films. Split-second, gem-like perfection. After making this film, (this PERFECT! film) John Woo retired to Hollywood...Why go on? He already done it all: he directed

H A R D B O I L E D!!!

This movie gets a thumbs up from me, not because it is a GREAT FILM, but because, when you put it next to similar movies--Chuck Norris or steven Segal movies-- it is superior.

the action sequences are tightly directed and exciting. the humor works. but most important, Rutger Hauer is the main character. When is everybody going to figure out that this guy is a great actor? He is always natural, can be funny, pathetic, intense, anything. He's truly on the level of,say, Gene Hackman, he just can't seem to get into many A-level projects.

Blind Fury is a funny-exciting-goofy type of action film, kind of like a Jackie Chan film, and Hauer's presence raises the whole thing an extra level.

This film was very dull and uninvolving. Perhaps it is a political allegory, for which I have no interest or understanding. Someone called it a comedy, but I didn't laugh once, nor did I noticed any attempts at humor. Most of the time I didn't know why the characters were saying what they were, if they were lying, who knew what... it was all very unresolved. Who were the man's advisaries? Who were his enemies, why?

At one point the father keeps asking "what's the Swiss bank account number?" Okay, so that shows he's greedy, but it isn't very clever or interesting or dramatic. Everybody in this film is greedy, which ruins the drama.

INSOMNIA will soon join the other fine European suspense films that have been remade in Hollywood with inferior results (RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE, THE VANISHING, NIGHTWATCH,) so you if you like these, see this one before everyone starts hyping the dumbed-down Hollywood version, set for next year. This film is beautifully photographed, and the haunting cinematography is very evocative of the main characters mental state. very suspenseful without feeling contrived or implausible.

Lame almost to an Ed Wood level of lame. Incredibly, these same people (Lynne Redgrave, Tushingham, and director Desmond Davis) made a great movie called GIRL WITH GREEN EYES, but don't watch this one expecting anything like GIRL WITH GREEN EYES, THE KNACK, or GEORGY GIRL. Those are all great compared to this. It's like a long, slow episode of "Lavern and Shirley".

The film is above average, well made, but lacking the style or brio that makes a good US or Italian crime film really fun. Sean Connery is great to look at in his leaner, pre-Bond form, and Herbert Lom is excellent. Connery plays a low-level mobster, and Lom is the criminal mastermind behind the mobs. It's interesting to contrast the portrayal of violence in this early 60s British film with American or other later portrayals. The approach here is so banal, and the mobsters are obviously pulling their punches in the fight scenes. The director seems completely uninterested in making the violence realistic or exciting. The final fight, however, has some choreography to it and a few interesting touches. In summation, a paint by numbers job, competent British B film, uninspired film making, but good nostalgic fun.

semi-staged documentary trying to show the coolness of the rolling stones, but the only thing they can think of doing is taking drugs and trashing hotel rooms. the banality is overwhelming, and displays the collapse of a counter culture into unimaginative squalor. I like the Stones' music, but they make lame celebrities.

If you like this kind of mystery-twistery one-of-my-wives-is-missing thriller suspense movies(like DEAD AGAIN, PRESUMED INNOCENT, etc.) then you should check this one out. It is truly baffling throughout as you try to guess what the truth is behind the goings-on. Tom Beringer has been in a near fatal car accident, has amnesia, and his wife(the incredible real life sex fantasy woman Greta Sacchi) nurses him to health. Check it out!!

I can't say it's perfect, but it does become very entertaining if you get over the slow start. I thought the childhood background at the beginning was boring and a bit bad. the child actors were too professionally cute, and the humour was tiring. The main character(Leslie Chueng) has a bit too much American Rebel influence, too much smirking. If he had shaved his head and gotten rid of that rebellious tussled hair, and if they had dropped five minutes of that "cute" childhood sequence, I would have liked it more. Also the camera tilted a little too much throughout, almost constantly. More restraint needed here. The last 40 minutes are great though, with lots of action and confrontation. There is quite a bit of gore in this film, with many heads rolling and people being sliced right in half. Go with the subtitles, it really does come across much better than the dubbed version.

"Wonderful to see things being born: to see them born...and see them die."

one of the best Bava films, I liked this one as much as Bay of Blood. Much better than Baron Blood. The slow slithering camera follows characters down dark corridors toward some strange sound, the violence is explicitly erotic ("you always loved violence!" Christopher Lee says as he whips a hot 60s babe.)the female lead is quite convincing in her fear, and in her orgasmic squirming and whimpering.) The compositions are exquisite, and just about every shot looks like a gothic 19th century painting. The plot is perfectly, nightmarishly confusing in the best sense, as if the film is itself a castle in which you get lost.

P.S. Don't be disappointed when Christopher Lee gets killed in the first 20 minutes....he comes back!!!

This is a very bad movie for many reasons. The main character (Kate Winslet)has no character development.

we are "told" how to feel about characters through exhausted cliches(Keitel is vain because he uses breath spray and combs his hair. Another character is "stupid"...he walks into a pole). There's a character in this film, the woman with the blond streaks in here hair, that doesn't have one believable line, just there to represent "what's wrong with society" or as a strawman contrast to Kate Winslet.

The humor is bad with a capital "B" BAD. Broad slapstick by people who don't know how to do comedy. This film is manipulative, wants to be wise, teach a lesson, and therefore is repulsive. I laughed whenever it tried to make a statement.

Everyone laughed when:

Keitel wailed "I love you"(big bellylaugh all around) Keitel punched Winslet in slow motion.

Keitel runs around(seriously, dramatically) in a red dress.

The serious parts were funny, the comic parts weren't.

Bad insulting movie.

I'm in agreement with the other comments here, but wanted to add my own enthusiastic applause for this great movie. Polanski is inspired here, brilliantly drawing the audience into strange situations, pulling you into a disturbing, engrossing drama. There's some very funny moments, but somehow they don't ruin the suspense. Meticulous film making, lots of small details to catch and think about. It is a headtrip.

Powerful visual style highlights this noir nightmare film, originally made in 1951. Is it Freudian, Surreal, or just plain fugged up? This is outsider film making, a one of kind rarity(the director's only film)that either discards standard film technique, or is totally ignorant of it. But the photography and music are both weird, wild, and quite well done. No dialog!!

The original director's version (Dementia)is much better than the one with some of the gore cut out, and an intrusive, idiotic Ed McMahon voiceover(Daughter of Darkness).They are both on the DVD, so don't make the mistake of watching the censored "Daughter" version first.

Don't miss the highly suggestive "chicken eating" scene. It's hilarious!!

Why did people like this?

Tiresome streams of pop-culture references?("like kane in Kung Fu" "Elvis or Beatles? Brady Bunch or Hogan's Heroes? Buffy St. Marie or Dusty Springfield? Leo Sayer or Captain & Taneall?")

mundane out of context dialogue?("wow this coffee sure is good. I didn't expect you to have such good coffee. this is one mean cup of joe!")

Hip depictions of Drug Culture.?

It's annoying bellyflop into the middle of the retro craze fashion herd?

one dimensional characters pointing guns at each other's heads? (the cheapest, most half-assed, most cliched way to generate drama = person pointing gun at another person's head. And yelling. over and over.)



"cool" sunglasses?

Take these things out, and the movie still isn't very good. Leave them in and it's trendy and annoying.

If you are a teenager and don't know anything about HK films, films from the 70s, or the 70s in general, are easily duped by hype, I urge you to see this movie. It was made for you!! It will TOTALLY BLOW YOU AWAY, MAN! Dude!