Reviews

The story is engaging and thought provoking. The location setting is well used. Supporting cast is good. Swank is very good. Pacino is great.

And then there's Robin Williams. This isn't his first serious role, but alas, even as a villian, he still uses the same delivery, and the same outward personality, "Son of Mork". It's not that he's a bad actor, it's just that he's extremely... well, let's be nice and call him "consistent".

Maybe that helps him get roles. Maybe casting directors figure that he has this large fan base that will come to see any movie he's in. When Robin Williams is in a movie, you know what to expect from him. He delivers a foolish consistency for little minds.

Big names always bring baggage from previous roles to the screen with them. I haven't seen Swank's Oscar movie, so she was new to me. Pacino might have brought back a few memories of previous characters, but at least you saw a cop, not an actor. With Robin, you see Williams.

For that reason, I like unknown actors. And if there ever was a movie that did not need big names to help it make an impression on the viewer, it was this one. This waw a good story, well made into a movie, such that you could call it "art" rather than "industry".

I have never seen a movie turned into such a piece of garbage by one character. I don't mean Adam Sandler the actor, I mean the way over the top way his character was presented. I've never seen such extreme overplaying of a character. He's a whining, stammering, bent-over, fidgeting, totally annoying basket case of humanity with his long hair plastered down over his face, and on and on. It was like the creators of the movie stayed up way too late dreaming up ways to make this character pathetic.

This might have been an ok movie, but every time Sandler's character came into a scene (most scenes), I just cringed by the pathetic overacting. After seeing this movie, I hated Sandler for a while until I recalled him in The Water Boy, a movie I enjoyed. It wasn't Sandler so much as the incredibly stupid way he was directed and how his character was designed.

There was a lot to like about the movie otherwise, but that character kept coming in so often, that the overall enjoyment of the movie was completely ruined.

I guess you might like Little Nickey if you enjoy the sights and sounds of a shivering miniature poodle that won't stop whining and barking for a second. On second thought the poodle isn't as obnoxious.

Words fail me. This movie totally stank thanks to that one character.

I remember seeing this movie back in the fifties, at a small town theatre that had a special program of non-Hollywood movies. I

remember seeing the pain on the theatre manager's face as some disturbing animal sacrifice scenes were being shown. From what I recalled, it was well made, had lots of vivid imagery and sounds. It's been too long since I've seen it to give it a good critique, but from what I recall, it was a pretty interesting movie, if a little disturbing at times. There's a lot more gore in movies today, but you knew that in this movie, it's real.

What an amazing picture. Some of the wierdest acting I've ever seen, this is definitely NOT a movie for someone who thinks

that modern Hollywood has the lock on filmmaking.

The lighting is harsh, usually from the side and below, so

that many times the nose of an actor shades one of the eyes.

And those eyes! Never have I seen so much use of the eyeball in a movie. Lots of shifting, rolling, wide open eyes, in

closeup full frame face shots. The acting is often robotic,

and there are lots of shots with two actors right face to

face, with synchronized expressions. I also loved the voices, especially Ivan's booming baritone, which is especially

effective coming from a rather thin looking man.

But it all works! I found myself laughing over and over at the bizarre camera, lighting and acting methods employed.

Whether this humor is intentional or not, I don't know or

care. A laugh is a laugh. Which is not to discount the

dramatic effects that came at the same time. It's just

the kind of laughter that comes from the excitement of

seeing such boldness of art.

Alas, the movie suffers from technical problems, which

can be forgiven due to the time and place in which it was made. The sound quality is poor, and the subtitles are

impossible to read at times, although 3/4 of the time I just ignored them. It's pretty easy to tell what's going on.

Again, this film is not for everyone, but it is a must for any serious student of filmmaking. It's a refreshing and education departure from Hollywood's "realism is everything" mentality.

I guess this movie is for people who like to watch make-believe rich people and fantasize about how they must live. So by all means, cast it with pretty Brad Pitt, Claire Gooeylani and Anthony Hopkins, who has worked his way up from a butler in some other movie.

Hopkins, who probably couldn't screw up a role even if he tried, is the only character in the movie who doesn't come off making you crave sucking on toilet paper soaked in imitation maple syrup. Pitt plays the "Angel of Death" sorta... How clever to have the Grim Reaper act cuuuuute!

Oh, there's some sort of storyline, some kind of high-falutin' big deal message to the movie about (who would guess?) LOVE, and well, yawn. Claire What's-her-lani plays Hopkin's character's daughter who happens to be a doctor, and I guess it's supposed to be meaningful that a doctor falls in love with Mr. Death, although when I mentioned that to the people who watched the movie with me, they just laughed. Maybe the two have a love affair just so you can get all dewey and fuzzy watching such cute people mumble at each other and make cow eyes.

And I gotta hand it to them, 'cause it was one of the dewey and fuzziest fall-for-me scenes. Oooh, that ULTRA SOFT voice that Claire ???Lani has! I don't know, is that some kinda electronic effect that they use? She sounded like a persian kitten purring in a down sleeping bag on a hot summer day, and was about as easy to understand. Is that supposed to be sexy or something? Is that the way she really talks? With that pencil neck of hers, I'd expect more of a squeak. Shows what I know.

I recommend this movie for people locked into a trailer park lifestyle, to get some ideas going on how they're gonna spend their lottery winnings. Oh, those rich people are SOOOO fuzzy!

What I really liked about this movie was the atmosphere. It takes place in L.A. around 1950, and the cars, clothing, settings and such were right on. This was still in the postwar design transition from deco to modern styles, and we get to see lots of good scenes of the way things must have looked when L.A. was in an oil boom.

Speaking of booms, the plot involves a new drilling technology called "directional drilling" that even many oil drillers didn't know about then. It allowed someone to place a drilling tower "here", and extract oil from "there". For example, you put your drilling tower on a cheap plot of land known to have no oil, and then extract the oil from some proven pumper.

Sometimes this can be dangerous. In one scene there is a housing development going in -- imagine L.A. housing developments around this time -- vast. Someone in a new house sits down on the crapper and goes to light a cigarette and "oil boom causes housing boom" so to speak... kinda like the rural-urban legend of grampa lighting his pipe and igniting the methane in the outhouse, except in this case it's petroleum gas, and those houses are all connected by sewer! Must be seen to be appreciated.

I confess I haven't seen Chinatown, but can say that this is a fun movie. Has a good plot, and lots to look at, too.

A strange thing happened to me while watching this movie for the first time: About halfway thru, I lost the desire to pay attention to it. It's not that I lost interest, just that I lost the feeling of need or obligation to pay attention in order to get the most out of it.

Cinematic enlightenment? Or just fatigue?

Hmmm... probably a little of both, combined with the knowledge that it I can always watch it again.

Cinematic reincarnation!

This really is a different movie, and I can see it being played on my VCR time and time again, at times when I want to "watch something", but don't...

There's just so much to it, so much to think about, so much to see, that one time thru will only give a little sip. And I'm afraid that there are times when it does help to read the subtitles -- although much of the time there are no subtitles.

The thing about it is, rather than "teach" Buddhist philosophy, it "gives the experience". It follows its three characters on the path, and gives lessons on letting go.

There is a scene where a young boy returns to the grave of a bird he'd buried a few days before: Unable to let go of the bird, unable to accept death, he finds that yes, life goes on, but in ways that he was not ready to accept or understand! In an instant, he's startled by the cry of another bird, and falls from a ledge into a pool of water (there's a lot of water in this movie), where he thrashes about like he's drowning -- and then he stops trying to swim, and simply allows himself to float. Get it?

Lots of eye candy, lots of mind candy. If you're a Buddhist, or in any way interested in Buddhism, you must not miss it for anything! If however you're not interested in the least about Buddhist philosophy, but ARE interested in cinematic excellence, see it. It's a masterpiece!

If you like Mifune as a samurai, this is the one not to miss. Unlike Seven Samurai, where he's not really a samurai, in this one he is a fully-qualified, if masterless samurai. This is more of a "pure samurai action" movie than Seven*. The story is simpler and moves along faster, and Mifune doesn't have to share the spotlight with others so much. It's his movie, and is he ever "bad"!

There's a scene in the movie that puzzles me, I had to watch it several times, and still don't get it: It's where some government officials visit the village our hero's "saving", and soon find themselves passed out on some spiked sake... the man who's serving them goes up to each of the two passed-out officials, and replaces their little bottles from behind, and then gives their sleeve a snap as if to straighten out the fabric, and gives a little snappy salute or something I can't figure it out, maybe you can.

If you like samurai movies, you just gotta see this one, no getting out of it. Dig the theme music for Mifune's character played on a baritone sax.. he's baaaaaad!

I'm a little surprised at the comments others have written on this movie, and it causes me to wonder if they've seen the two earlier "Mutiny on the Bounty" movies they are comparing it with. To me, the first one is of great acedemic interest for acting and cinematography, the second one was an absolute masterpiece, while this one was a mixed bag.

Indeed, if it weren't for Anthony Hopkins as Capt. Bligh, this movie would be a yawner, except to fans of wooden ships and/or Tahitian women. And to be sure, this version does the most respectful job of portraying the Tahitians, both in terms of authenticity and respect. Tahitians are actually given some acting responsibility in this film, which I liked. Also, the crew looked the most believeable.

Yet there was something lacking in this movie that made it pale in comparison to the other two Bounty films.

Specifically, it lacked an actor to play the part of Mr. Christian. The part was given to Mel Gibson instead. Maybe that was intentional, to put emphasis on Hopkins' Bligh character.

Then again, maybe Gibson or his writers were afraid to "let it all hang out", for fear of being compared with the BRILLIANT performance given by Brando in the earlier version. Alas, keeping a low profile didn't work for Gibson. I guess the moral of the story is "never follow an animal act".

Another thing that bothered me about this movie was how the *screen* was cramped. Seems like all the onboard action was shot about three feet from the characters' noses. Now granted, the Bounty was small as ships go, and all ships are crowded, but to be reminded of it over and over? In fact, we weren't. I'm only speculating as to why the *screen* looked cramped and too often dark. The effect was to make the movie itself look small!

For "wooden ship fans", this movie does deliver at times, we get to see them trying to round the Horn, and it don't look like fun, no indeed! Strangely, I noticed a few seconds of what I could swear was the exact same footage as used in the '60's version of the film.

I don't want to be too hard on this movie, and it's pretty hard to follow two previous versions of the same story, both of which were classics. Although this was not a great movie, it was a very good one, and best of all, if you liked any one of the three movies, you've got the other two to see!

Some might say that it's not fair to compare any movie or actor with another, but in this case, it's just too much fun. It's amazing to see how three different movies can tell three different versions of one or another aspect of a story. Much of that story is a matter of speculation and legend, more of the story depends on who you believe, but much of the story is a matter of the court record! In one, we have Bligh punished, in another we have him aquitted with a commendation, and in another, we have him aquitted with a reprimand! OTOH, we get to see that same coconut shell scale being used to ration out food on the lifeboat.

All in all, there are three fun movies to watch, two of which could be considered great.

Sheesh! It is amazing how much control the Hollywood establishment has over the entire spectrum of news media. In the morning paper, I read about some new movie for the first time ever. At noon, there it is again in a news magazine I get in the mail. Then I see some "news" story about it at six o'clock, and later on in the evening there's some story about one of the stars, and later again, an interview with the director and so on. The next day, the movie opens in a theater near you... and it turns out to be one mediocre dog doo of a flick that's begging seats in the "dollar theatre" a month later, only to be forgotten by year's end.

Then, there are movies like this one.

I'd never heard of it when I happened by chance to see it at a friend's house.

And I'll never forget it. What a masterpiece!

If you're a musician, and especially if your first instrument was a hand-me-down, you might appreciate the peculiar tendency of a musical instrument to absorb and even accumulate the human soul, and find its way into the most appropriate hands. That's what this movie is about. Although if you're like me, you might think it's about that one hand-me-down that nobody else wanted, that got you started, the one that years later, when you saw some kid admiring it, you just *knew* it no longer belonged to you...

The New World Holocaust continues. After 500 years of European contact, there are still communities in the Americas living the way their ancestors did in pre-Columbian times.

And there are still people seeking them out with the intention of destroying their traditional ways, or at least their spiritual beliefs.

The Amazon Indians in this movie have it coming to them from both directions: Missionaries who want to convert them to Christianity, and a North American Indian who wants to be converted *from* Christianity!

The big prize goes to who can do the most damage to the world.

This is another one of those cinematic masterpieces which didn't have a good enough publicity machine. Another one of those movies you see by accident, and wonder why you never heard of it before.

The scenery is breathtaking. You have scenes of an old airplane cruising thru the rising mist of the rain forest, accompanied by beautiful haunting music. Combined, the effect is unforgetably haunting. And you have Darryl Hannah skinny-dipping, followed by one of the most beautiful, pristine kissing scenes that has ever been filmed.

And you also have those darn missionaries! I have to say that a couple of them were a little -- maybe a LOT overwritten, overacted, or stereotyped as your basic pious protestant bigots. But then, that's what the movie is all about, and some of their statements and actions are simply outrageous. Sadly, I suspect that there really are people like that, considering what anyone can see in the American political arena any day.

This isn't a feelgood movie, especially considering how true to life it really is, that this sort of thing really is going on to this very day.

I loved the first Austin Powers movie, but found this one to be disgusting. I only watched about 20 minutes of it, so I can't comment on rumors that it does get kinda funny during the last ten minutes or so.

It's amazing how something that could work so well the first time around, i.e. the parody of the sixties superspy genre, could fail so miserably the second time. Maybe it's because the first time around, you're reminded of the movie "Goldfinger", where the second time, you're reminded of the first Austin Powers movie. That is, the first A.P. movie was given creative inspiration by something external, where the second A.P. movie was nothing more than a self-absorbed tribute to the first movie, an inside joke reduced to the level of sickening cliche.

An amazing amount of time is wasted on pseudo-scenes where our former hero simply mugs the camera and dances around, as if he's making the first appearance in the movie. I couldn't believe how self-indulgent it was. What are we supposed to do when all of a sudden in the middle of the movie, we hear that disco beat again, and there's the main character's face filling the screen in front of a psychedelic background, mugging for one snapshot after another as if to say "Here I am, baby!". Yes, Austin, we KNOW you're in the movie. Go "shag" yourself.

I have to admit what I liked most about this movie was the "authentic costumes" of the Amazonian people in their natural habitat -- they were 98% naked. This is however, NOT your basic titillating "skin flick" in spite of what my summary says. The nudity was tasteful and totally appropriate...

OTOH, the acting was weak, and the fake indian language was downright embarassing. I think I heard Tommy's indian father say "dizzy Monday" when referring to the civilized world! This made me wonder about the authenticity of the other aspects of indian life presented in the movie -- for example, the coming of age, selecting and proposing a wife, and a marriage ceremony. I would like to believe that is how it's really done by one or another people in the Amazon, but just don't know.

All in all, I did enjoy the movie quite a lot, but mostly for the visual beauty. For a better-produced Amazon movie, see "At Play in the Fields of the Lord".

The movie starts with a board meeting at a major advertising agency. Putney Swope is on the board for no other reason than the fact that he is black, and the agency needs a "token" on the board. Swope is ignoring the meeting, reading Jet magazine at the big table, and everybody is ignoring Swope... Suddenly, the CEO croaks on the spot. No time is wasted. A janitor is called to haul off the corpse, and the board immediately and unceremoniously tackles the business of electing a new CEO. And as the votes are tallied one by one, the tension is built up and then finally snapped in a hilariously ironic climax to the vote, that gives the viewer a delicious dish of logical implications to savor for the rest of the movie. If you've ever talked back to some stupid television commercial, you'll like seeing this movie. Too bad there don't seem to be any real Putney Swopes in the world.

A rude awakening awaits a Miami gangster played by Anthony Quinn, as he is kidnapped, and then betrayed one by one by all the people he thought he could count on in life.

Quinn does a beautiful job of playing someone who suddenly realizes just where he stands in the world, and who he real friends are.

I guess this movie could be called a "dark comedy" in some regards, it nevertheless leaves you feeling good at the end as you see how masterfully Quinn's reassembles the pieces of his shattered world.