Reviews

This movie had the basic plot to be quite a gripping story but, yet again (Oh! How often this happens in movies!), the characters' behaviour is totally atypical and that spoils it.

Of course, if everyone HAD behaved logically, than there wouldn't really have been much of a story and thus no movie - and that may have been a good thing! If Mary (Laura Breckenridge) had taken the time to think it through, she would have been most sensible to have pretended she didn't know the guy was impaled on the front of her Jeep until the next morning by which time she would have been sober. Then all she would have needed to do was call the cops and tell her story exactly as it happened - she swerved to avoid an obstacle in the road and bounced over rough terrain through some bushes and never realised she had hit anyone - which would have been absolutely true. The cops would have probably attempted to nail her for dangerous driving or something that a half-decent lawyer would have got her out of and that would have been that.

But no! Mary just had to complicate things out of all proportion and create a scenario for a horror movie didn't she? I must admit the victim of the accident was very "Jasonish" in that he was practically indestructible - how much can a human body take for goodness sake? He was initially hit by a fast-moving vehicle and carried some distance impaled on the front bumper, then he was bludgeoned violently with a golf club and buried in soaking wet dirt. Then he had one eye put out with an electric plug and hit full-on by the same Jeep and thrown through the windscreen where he fought like a Trojan until eventually getting thrown off by a bit of sharp braking and finally run over. Even then I was half expecting him to get up and try again!

Then there were all the other inexplicable bits. Like where did the victim call Mary from and how did he know both her numbers? What sort of boyfriend was Rick? (Well, I guess we really know that one! Anyone who would pull a hand-on-the-shoulder-from-behind stunt in the situation he and Mary were in deserved to get his head bludgeoned with anything heavy that was close at hand.) And how does Mary get away with her little "private funeral" in the woods with enough lights on her jeep to run the battery flat in about ten minutes without anyone noticing? What half-sane teenager would wander around her house announcing her presence with a torch after all that had happened? And, for heaven's sake, WHY hadn't the victim's wife called the emergency services the moment she set eyes on him? Like, what loving wife would find her husband all smashed up and covered in blood and do nothing more than wipe a bit of it away? Come on!

Sorry Ms McCallion, you shouldn't have bothered!

I remember thoroughly enjoying Krull when it was first released over twenty-five years ago and so, when I saw a DVD of it on my son's shelf, I couldn't wait to have another look at it. I should mention that I have done this before and, in most cases been pretty disappointed. After all, digital special effects technology has advanced beyond anything we ever dreamt of in 1983 but, in the case of Krull, the experience after all that time was just as great as when I first watched it.

Of course, bearing in mind those technological advances, I was reasonably prepared to be disappointed. I needn't have been! Yes, the special effect WERE pretty basic as other reviewers (possibly younger than me) have pointed out. Maybe I was better prepared for that than I would have been if I had never heard of Krull and seen it for the first time in 2010 and that was an distinct advantage.

Another source of great enjoyment for me was seeing so many actors who are now either retired or dead or, in the case of Liam Neeson and Robbie Coletrain, a lot more famous that when they made only the fifth and ninth movies (respectively) of their now glittering careers. Back then, both died rather unspectacular deaths that probably wouldn't happen today. For me, Krull was a wonderful sort of "reprise" for many actors that I had long forgotten (Oh! How fickle we viewers can be!). And how wonderful IMDb is where we can simply click on the actors' names in the cast list and learn what has happened to them.

John Welsh - dead 25 years ago, Bernard Bresslaw (Oh, how we loved him as a sort of "Lurch" type) - dead 17 years and Bernard Archard who made it to 92! All great reminders of days gone by.

I suppose that some of todays youngsters will be a bit blasé about Krul but, if they have the presence of mind to view it as what it is - a 1983 fantasy movie, I honestly believe they'll thoroughly enjoy it!

I was loaned a DVD of Rocket Science and had neither read or heard anything about it so there was no prejudice at all and, to be honest, after sitting through all 114 minutes of it, I was left wondering what was the point of it all.

The opening and early part of the movie is OK (if you like that sort of thing) and we are introduced to Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson), a lad with a severe speech impediment. Hal's home is very dysfunctional with his father leaving his mother and one suspects that this is possibly contributory to his speech impediment. Additionally, as is, sadly, typical of such situations, there are those heartless immature individuals at Hal's school who seem to delight in belittling him and, to his credit, he takes most of it in his stride. Particularly distasteful is Hal's treatment by his brother Earl who one would have expected to be supportive of his kid brother. Sometimes Earl actually is supportive but, most of the time, he delights in bullying Hal.

The whole movie is centered around the New Jersey State High School Debating Championships which, I guess, tends to feature what many viewers might call "geeks" or "Nerds" - those students who are in the upper intellectual echelons. This is where Hal sort of fits into the plot because, whilst he has extreme difficulty expressing himself verbally, he DOES have a brain - so to speak. OK, so far, so good. After far too long, I was beginning to wonder where the movie was going until Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) and Hal's paths cross. Ginny is decidedly angry because her highly accomplished debating partner, Ben Wekselbaum (very well portrayed by Nicholas D'Agosto) "lost it" in the grand final of the debating contest costing Ginny the only trophy she had never won.

In some sort of weird spin, Ginny asks Hal to be her partner for the next championship which, on the face of it, seemed totally ridiculous given Hal's unsuitability. But then, because it WAS a fictional story, my mind immediately imagined that Ginny was going to perform some sort of miracle (which, I also imagined, would involve some romantic involvement between the two of them - you know, love conquers everything) that resulted in Hal overcoming his disability and, with his help, Ginny achieving her final debating goal at last. Kinda made sense really (to Me anyway!). Although I couldn't help wondering why Hal even considered the invitation knowing his own limitations - maybe, like me, he expected love to work a miracle!

Well, the romantic bit happened (which, as I say, was hardly surprising given the circumstances) but the miracle didn't. In fact, the whole story came down in a heap when Ginny suddenly changes sides and goes to the school that had defeated her in the last debating championship and even teams up with one of the team that beat her! Hal, by now madly in love with Ginny, is understandably left bewildered and devastated. But little Hal isn't a quitter! There was even a brief moment in the film where Hal is running and, the way it is portrayed, I suddenly thought that he was going to discover that he had the speed to become a champion athlete and show Ginny that loquacity isn't everything in becoming successful. But that was just a brief hope and nothing came of it.

He seeks out Ben (whose 'aberration' had caused him to quit school and work at a dry cleaners) and asks him to join him as a home-school debating team. remembering Hal from school, Ben is not so keen though. But Hal's persuasive abilities are brought into force and, using some techniques suggested by Hal's speech therapist, the team sets about preparing at the last minute to enter the champs with Hal singing his words - which he does a lot better than speaking them, but still not flawlessly.

By now (at least 100 minutes into the story) I'm becoming increasing frustrated by Hal's lack of loquacity to the point where I was almost ready to stop the disc. But then I also wanted to see how the expected miracle would manifest itself and so I hung in as the debating finals begin. Then in walks the chief judge and tells Ben and Hal that they are disqualified because neither of them is being home-schooled! There were some other events (such as Hal stealing another trophy that was to be presented to Ginny) but, in the end, Hal is still stuttering and Ginny goes her selfish way. And that was that! What really worries me though is that I feel as though I have missed the whole point. Perhaps I just don't like lousy endings where the loser becomes a winner and true love wins out. This just wasn't my sort of film. I wonder who'sea it was though!

After watching movie after violent, profane and sick movie, Family Holiday was an absolute delight. Sure, the plot was pretty basic - even lame, but what the heck! It just goes to prove the old adage that there is some good in even the very worst people. Without wanting to include any spoilers, 'Doc' Holliday (Dave Coulier) is, perhaps, a bit of a "sanitized" bad guy (with, of course, a deprived childhood to justify the way he has turned out) - in real life, someone like Doc would probably be a lot more profane and uncouth but then this IS a family movie. Alexa Fischer is delightful. She is beautiful and oozes personality - a bit reminiscent of Meg Ryan. Why don't we see a lot more of her? There isn't even a profile of her on IMDb and I, for one, would like to know all about her (so please fix that!).

William Schultz and Abigail Schornick as seven-year-old orphan twins, Tim and Amanda, were also excellent and I see that they haven't had any previous acting experience. It would be interesting to know their real ages but IMDb has nothing on either of them too. Since they portrayed twins I felt that the scriptwriter (Craig Clyde) doesn't have much knowledge of kids because, in the movie, Tim is by far the most 'worldly wise' of the two and, in real life, it's the girls who usually mature a lot quicker (as most movies typically have it) but, anyone watching Family Holiday would be forgiven for thinking that Amanda was a couple of years younger than her brother.

I have a question: As an Aussie, I have no knowledge of American welfare practices and wonder if seven-year-old twins would really be separated for adoption (as portrayed in the movie). Here, everything would be done to ensure that siblings stayed together. Is America really that barbaric and soulless? If the answer is, as I hope it will be, "No", then that would be a 'downer' for the movie because it creates a false impression to non-American viewers.

This was my first movie of 2010 and it was a beautiful start to the year. I will happily give a DVD of it to my 96-year-old Mum and, believe me, it is getting harder and harder to find anything with a decent heart-warming story and no gratuitous profanity and/or violence. Let's have some more please Craig.

One final question: What actually happened to the inheritance?

History (that is, movie history) tends to pre-colour one's thinking and so the original Friday the 13th movies must precondition viewers for what's to come in this, the latest offering for those with a propensity for bizarre murder stories.

However, don't today's filmgoers deserve SOME credit for intelligence? Like, don't we expect supposedly young adults with (supposedly) some education to behave a bit logically? Given that there's a killer running amok in the neighborhood, wouldn't it be sensible to plan some sort of strategy to beat him? But no. Our protagonists split up and race around the woods with the women screaming a lot of the time and the guys displaying gross incompetence. Interesting too that those ear-drum shattering screams, which, on an otherwise peaceful country night, would be easily heard at least two miles away, don't seem to be heard by anyone when it's most crucial. Ho Hum!

Then, when one of the group eventually puts in an emergency call to the police telling them that there's a mass killer slaying everyone in sight, the cops send ONE man! This is, in actual fact, in direct contrast to all those other American movies where the police send about two hundred armed swat-team members, several helicopters and umpteen squad cars all with sirens screaming to rescue a cat up a tree! Oh no! Not here! ONE cop - and a not too bright one at that!

Then, as the climax approaches, with one of the protagonists at last armed with a gun, instead of using common sense and waiting for the killer to come into the line of fire and letting him have it with a single shot, our hero empties the magazine on closed doors and shadows and then goes racing out to his death at the hands of a far more calculating creature than himself or his companions.

Nevertheless, if you like suspense with a bit of sexy action (not to mention some superb female bodies!!!) I guess you might get a little pleasure from the latest (but obviously not the final) Crystal Lake saga!

When are people like jkdeboer (does that mean "the bore"? - it SHOULD!) going to sit back and enjoy a good story? And WHY, may I ask, have IMDb chosen to put THAT lousy comment on the movie's home page? Fortunately, I was somewhat surprised by ms DeBoer's comments and elected to read a few more rather than just take hers as typical!

First of all, let's remember that this is NOT a star-studded movie spectacular. It is a fictitious story based around the popular urban myth about a rich man dying and his art collection being auctioned. If you haven't heard the story, I won't spoil the movie for you by telling it here. Mind you, if you have heard the story, then the end of the movie won't be any surprise either! But who cares? It is a nice wholesome movie and, as such, is pleasant entertainment.

I could pick some holes in the acting (particularly Charles Shaughnessy's - he should have stuck to comedy!) but, again, what would that achieve? I guess there are those people in this world who simply enjoy rubbishing other people's efforts - although, I suspect if they had to make a movie themselves, they couldn't do nearly as well as those they tear apart! I have the movie on DVD and am happy to have it as part of my collection. So, people, if you have been put off by Miss DeBoer's irate rantings, just ignore them and watch The Painting anyway!

I was given a DVD of Public Enemies and was expecting it to be the 2009 version but it wasn't - it was this! Sure, it wasn't the greatest movie I have ever seen - not by ANY means - but, heck folks, it was worth more that 2.8 out of 10! When I saw that abysmal rating on IMDb, I wondered what I was going to get but, since the disc was in the player, I settled down to watch it. As other commentators have pointed out, Public Enemies is NOT a historical movie per-se - and I noted that, unlike the 2009 version (which I haven't seen yet) IMDb doesn't categorise it as such.

Come on people! It's a STORY based on some real people - that's all! If I wanted a history lesson, I'd sit at this computer and read Wikipedia or something. Ma Barker (actual name Arizona - or Arrie - Barker) was NEVER even charged with any crime and, as other commentators have already pointed out, she probably never even took part in her sons' activities. They sent her to the movies when they were "working"! (I hope she wasn't as critical as some of those who watched this movie!)

Theresa Russell had the never-too-easy task of portraying a woman from the age of 17 right through to her death at the age of 52 - from a young girl running from home to the hardened mother of four hoodlum sons. I think she did it pretty well. The cheeky little smile she used in more than one scene was classical! OK, I will agree with some of the critics that the direction of this film was below par and I sympathise with the actors over that. Theresa should have told the director to forget the topless shots - they didn't contribute to the story. Maybe some bigger-name stars would have managed to inject some of their own expertise into overriding the poor direction whereas the second-graders weren't quite that brave. Who knows?

But, whilst this was certainly no block-buster, it WAS worth more than 2.8!! I have all my DVDs on a personal database where I score them BEFORE looking at the IMDb score (although that sometimes influences slight changes later). I take what I get on it's own merits rather than holding one movie up against others of the same genre and this one I felt was entertaining enough to get 6.8. (Yep, I'll accept that such a practice does tend to depend on my mood at the time, but then isn't that also true of those who vote on IMDb?) However, you may imagine my surprise when I looked at IMDb and saw the pitiful score it got here.

Given the surprise, I decided to read a few of the other comments in the hopes of understanding the low rating and I noticed that they are quite polarised. I agreed with those who said the movie was worth watching and came to the conclusion that some people are just hard to please. Well, since some were absolutely scathing, why don't THEY get out there and make some better movies? I will look forward to the gems they must be able to turn out! On the other hand, if they can't do that, then why don't they just shut up?

At first, I wondered what this was going to be about but, pretty soon after that, I couldn't help but be absolutely enthralled by the superb acting of real-life sisters, Sarah and Emma Bolger who play sisters Christie and Ariel in the movie. When one realises that , at the time the film was shot, they were 11 and 6 respectively, there can be no doubt whatsoever that Ireland has two megastars in the making.

But the story itself is incredibly moving. If nothing else, it is an inspiration to any family that is experiencing tough times. Even though each member of the family is trying to deal with great grief in their own ways, the overall positivity is inspirational. I would suggest that most couples experiencing such outward expressions of each other's traumas would never have made it but, every time one broke, the other was strong and understanding - true, sometimes that was "for the sake of the girls" - but, when push came to shove, an incredible love relationship won the day. The professional skills and sensitivities of Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton as Mum and Dad were deeply moving in their portrayals and the wonderful innocence of two little sisters in a seedy part of a scary, strange city is awesome! Where I was feeling (to say the least) trepidation at the unknown, those two kids just go right ahead into the most frightening of challenges and continue to beat on the scary stranger's door until admitted.

I have to admit that, right up to the final credits, I was dreading a terribly sad ending and, even though there was, indeed, sadness, it was more than overshadowed by the victorious climax.

The only negative aspect of this whole film was the fact that it illustrated, far too graphically for me, what a lousy place America really is where all the hospital seemed to be interested in was money, money, money! I guess I'm spoiled here in Australia because, in the last two months, I have personally had (semi) emergency heart surgery to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars at absolutely no cost to myself at all. Thank God for the Aussie welfare state!

Definitely the best movie I have seen during the last six weeks of convalescence!

Maybe we Aussies just have a totally different sense of humour and therein my lie the only problem here. I have a database of all the DVDs I own (including those received as gifts - which this was) and so, when entering a new one, I always refer to IMDb for such info as genre, runtime, director, leads etc. When entering this, I noted that it was a comedy and so I decided to watch it at a time when I wanted something light and a good laugh. Well, it was neither! There were absolutely NO laughs at all and an inordinate amount of gratuitous profanity (are there REALLY radio announcers allowed to broadcast the sort of filth that Steve Jones dishes out? What if a decent child happened to tune to his station?).

Rather than enjoy a good laugh (or even a little giggle) I found the whole thing thoroughly depressing. I have given it 3 out of 10 but, to be honest, I don't know what those 3 are for! I suppose the basics of lighting and sound weren't too bad!

We have an ostensibly stone-broke loser (Giovanni Ribisi) who still seems to be able to drive a reasonable car (who pays for the fuel?) and live in what could be a nice apartment (who pays his rent?) Given the opportunity of forming what might have been some sort of meaningful relationship with what turned out to be a nice girl, he even blew that! Perhaps it was she (Lynn Collins) who earned this movie the 3 points! The fact that she works as a stripper rather than a hairdresser is one of the few aspects of this movie that makes sense ("I make as much in one night doing this as I do in two weeks' hairdressing").

Unless you want to get depressed and bored to the teeth, forget it!

After reading several of the other reviews for The X Files: I Want to Believe, I found myself becoming angrier and angrier to the point where, just as I was about to stop reading any more, I came to one written by someone who actually had something positive to say! What do you people want? I suppose everyone is a movie critic to some extent but what I would like to ask is, "Could YOU do better?" Some people are SOOOO demanding! OK, this film WAS a bit different from most of the old TV X Files stuff in that it dealt with a totally earthly situation - no green aliens or extra-terrestrial influences (unless, of course, you like to think of Father Joe's visions as extra-terrestrial insofar that he claimed them to come from God).

Some reviewers made categorical statements that head transplanting comes into the sphere of science fiction. Well, so did heart transplanting before December 3rd 1967. As for stem cell technology, fifty years ago that would have been ridiculed by these same reviewers (had they been alive then - but I suspect they are far too infantile to remember that far back!) And WHAT, one wonders, would they have written about cloning thirty years ago? In films like "The Boys From Brazil" and "Jurassic Park" THAT was science fiction wasn't it? Well, it ain't anymore! Just watch the news and maybe, just maybe, there'll be a spectacular news story about some renegade surgical team in some out-of-the-way country that has performed the very first full head transplant and all the closed-minded morons will gasp and say, "Wow! THey did that on that X Files movie a few years back!"

It was great to see Billy Connolly in another serious role although it WAS a bit difficult to separate it from his much better-known persona of a somewhat profane comedian. But I (possibly an eternal romantic) was particularly thrilled to see Fox and Dana actually showing loving emotion for each other. How ofter during the TV series did I think, "WHEN the heck are those two going to realise that they are made for each other?"

Some reviewers commented that the ending (the final one as the titles rolled, that is) left the scene wide open for another sequel and I hope they are right in that. However, if Chris Carter ever got to read what some of the critics have written, I wouldn't blame him if he just tossed in the towel and said, "Stuff the lot of ya!" and never wrote any more. I'm sure he doesn't need the money so why leave himself open to those unappreciative nerds? The X Files was and always has been Chris' "baby" and, as far as I'm concerned, he can do what he likes with it. If you don't like what he does, shut up and move on!

Well done Chris! I LIKED and enjoyed your work!

WOW!! I watched this movie on DVD and, dare I say it, on looking up the cast on IMDb, formed the idea that it was probably going to be a waste of time since I'd never heard of any of them. I couldn't have been more wrong!! For at least 80% of the movie, I was on the edge of my seat! I noticed it is based on a true story although I don't remember ever hearing anything like it on the news here in Australia. How close the screenplay is to that story I have no idea but, even if it is only a fraction close, the younger sister, Lee should have been given some sort of bravery award.

If this had been made in Hollywood with big-name actors I reckon it would have been a smash hit. As it is and as I say, I had never heard of it or any of the cast until I was loaned the DVD. I guess it's a case of being in the right place at the right time.

I give it 8.7.

I have a feeling that this film may have been interesting if only I could have heard most of the dialogue above the terribly intrusive musical score. Why did the music need to be so loud? If the dialogue was unimportant enough to drown it with unpleasantly loud music then why include it? What a waste of time! Pity really. I may have missed a good movie! Although I am left wondering whether I might have enjoyed the story, I cannot help agreeing with another commentator that there's nothing new or very different about it. I also wonder why an ex-student would want to give a guy who was as boring as Quaid was at the first dinner a second chance. And can anyone please tell me how a grown man can "misuse" a condom???

Dennis Quaid in this guise would make a wonderful understudy for Harrison Ford - but that's only a passing comment.