Thomas_S's Reviews

Babysitting (I) (2014)

7/10

10 February 2019

I've often been disappointed by French films. Too dragged out. Too dour. Too silly. No talent. No inspiration.

But this one is different. It's solid comedy, and the mannerisms shown are based on how the French really are today - exaggerated, of course. It's comedy.

Solid comedy. Not a masterpiece, but good entertainment.

5 out of 10 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

A Christmas Tale (2008)

1/10

Two and a half hours of tedious gloom à la française

5 January 2017

Two and a half hours of overlong, dragged-out, tedious misery and gloom from start to finish in a dysfunctional neurotic family where nearly everybody hates nearly everybody else and too many try to drown their sorrow in alcohol and tobacco.

It is because of pseudo-intellectual artsy-fartsy films like this many say that life is too short for French films. There are many good French films; this is just not one of them.

To add to the misery, the film has been shot in one of the most grey, boring, depressing and uninteresting parts of France, so there is no beautiful scenery to lift it up, and nothing else saves it from total gloom.

Not one character is likable, and after thirty minutes, one no longer cares whatever happens to them.

This is not a Christmas movie in the traditional sense. The gloom just happens to be set over the holiday period for the purpose of having the entire family together so their mutual rejection can be spelt out.

If you don't like this after the first fifteen minutes, you can just as well stop it. It doesn't get any better.

On the other hand, if you appreciate sad films where nothing really happens, except for each family member's psychological trauma interacting with the others', then you may well use this review to conclude that here is something for your taste.

6 out of 20 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Pumpkinhead (1988)

1/10

Waste of time

8 March 2010

This movie is total nonsense. A 15-year old who has never seen a horror movie before in his life may perhaps be frightened, but not many others. The characters are so uninteresting that you don't really care what happens to them, except for the boy who is killed in the beginning. There is no suspense once the monster is out, and its killings are about as suspenseful as the unwrapping of a piece of bubblegum. We are supposed to believe just like that that coincidentally, a few miles from the place of the accident that killed the boy, a witch and her buried, recyclable, revivable monster is available for revenge on order, just like you buy a sandwich. The movie is fairly predictable, and even the slightly less predictable ending leaves you totally indifferent, simply with a relief that the torture of watching such trash is over. The real horror is that I wasted about an hour and a half of my life with this garbage.

5 out of 15 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Talk to Her (2002)

1/10

Bulls are really abused and killed in this movie

3 December 2008

I gave this movie 7 until I discovered on the discussion board and PETA's website (peta.org/feat/bullmovie/) that bulls were actually abused, tortured and killed for this movie. In protest, I then changed my vote to 1. This is simply outrageous. This animal abuse is a real shame for the movie as it would otherwise have been very good because of the moral paradox it brings up, and the very balanced way it presents the main character despite of what he does in the movie. However, viewers looking for black-and-white Hollywood style movies where the bad guy is portrayed as an ugly maniac and the good guys as angels are likely to be confused by Talk to Her. Unfortunately, the bull killing leaves me no other choice than to encourage everybody to boycott this movie.

21 out of 37 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Dogma (1999)

4/10

overrated

8 November 2008

The only mystery in this movie is how it got two stars in Halliwell's film guide, unless it was a typo. It is plain boring. The characters are unlikeable, both the good and the bad guys, and the actors don't seem to know what to do with their characters. This movie doesn't know if it wants to be a philosophical movie, a monster movie, a comedy or a drama so it rambles along like a ship without a captain. Silly jokes, silly situations, endless bickering and discussion and all that don't help. The theme is potentially interesting, but neither the writer nor the director seem to have a clue how to make an interesting movie on the theme. I gave up and switched it off after having wasted one hour of my life on this. My advice: Don't bother unless you're desperate.

9 out of 23 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Dogville (2003)

3/10

Pseudo-intellectual trash

8 November 2008

Watching this movie is like eating a bread as its separate ingredients before they are mixed or baked. It's only because the director's name is Trier that he can get away with this. Making a movie in a studio without a set may be a different idea, but it's not a good one. Intellectually refreshing, perhaps, but very boring, and the whole thing drags out for too long time. The actors don't seem comfortable doing this either, and the dialogue and acting have an artificial 'feel' throughout. As for the plot, it's nothing special at all. Throughout the movie, I waited for something to make it a worthwhile exercise, and for a long time after having seen it, I continued searching for that 'yes, got the idea!' feeling, but it never came. To be fair, I avoided posting an opinion for several months. But it's the Emperor's New Clothes (which is written by a Dane, Hans Christian Andersen - Trier is Danish too). Trier is not stupid and he must have had a purpose making this. I can see two potential purposes: 1. The irony of the Emperor's New Clothes also being written by a Dane. 2. Trier being amused by pseudo-intellectuals praising this trash to the sky, well knowing that it really isn't good, and waiting to see if people can figure out the Emperor's New Clothes connection.

5 out of 14 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Cliffhanger (1993)

8/10

Fantastic stunts and scenery but traditional cat-and-mouse

6 February 2008

I hesitated between 7 and 8 but I give it 8 for its incredible stunts and very professional shooting of a fantastic scenery which is out of the ordinary. The plot itself is also interesting, at least in the beginning, so long as you don't expect much reality. The last 45 minutes or so, the cat-and-mouse game that Hollywood loves so much starts getting a bit boring, though. The degree of predictability also points downwards, and am I the only one who is getting tired of watching scenes where someone with a machine gun is able to hit everything but the man running in front of him? A bit more reality such places would not make such movies less interesting. But to conclude, just sit down, enjoy the ride and switch off the brain. It's a movie for the eyes, not the head.

1 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Don't Look Now (1973)

4/10

Don't Look Ever

31 January 2008

The only thing I liked about this movie was the grey December atmosphere from Venice and it's little dark corners. As for the rest of this movie, it would have been better left in the canals of Venice forever. First of all, one might have been able to understand more of what the actors say if they had hired a sound engineer and some decent mikes. This film could be useful at sound engineering school for demonstrating how not to produce a soundtrack. There is a horrible echo in many scenes.

Donald Sutherland looks like a walrus, but I guess that's the price of watching 70s movies.

But the story is total nonsense. I could accept a little bit of nonsense if it least there was something else that was good, but there isn't. Are we supposed to be frightened off our wits by a bit of fog and a red coat? The director tries to build up a an atmosphere of mystery in Venice in December but he utterly fails and the whole story crashes to the floor. The ending is the culmination of stupidity.

26 out of 46 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

American Pie (1999)

7/10

Positive surprise

28 January 2008

After having read some negative comments about this movie, I was positively surprised. It would have been easy to make a total fiasco out of such a movie, but this movie is well balanced and well made. The characters are likable and the acting good. Some of the gags are original, and I like the style of humour. It deals with teenage sexuality without overstepping the line for vulgarity and without being embarrassing. Another reason I liked it - and the reason for taping it - is that I hope it can break the barrier when it's my turn as a father to explain certain facts of life to my children in a few years. The movie shows teenagers that it's normal for everybody to be shy and awkward when first encountering love and sex, and that those who are bragging all over the place do it to project a false image. The movie shows what works and what doesn't work when looking for a girlfriend, and that certain pranks that go over the line can have serious consequences. It also shows teenagers that they are not weirdos if they have sexual desires or fantasies. That said, not everybody will like it. Certain will find the humour too gross. Others will find it too puerile.

0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Swingers (1996)

1/10

Tripe from start to finish. Unlikeable characters.

28 January 2008

Nothing interesting goes on in this movie. Nothing funny. No likable characters. Terrible acting; faces like stone. Endless idiotic bickering. Even the sets are uninteresting. I gave it until the first commercial break and then let it finish as background noise while I finished a proofreading, occasionally glancing at the movie to see if the director should have changed his mind to the better, but the disappointment was the same at every glimpse. What's the idea with this movie? I don't get it. Did I overlook something? Like the director had to fill the movie with something, so I am told by the system that I have to fill in some more lines for this comment to be allowed. I hope these last phrases do the job.

20 out of 41 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Rat Race (2001)

5/10

Not funny. Waste of talent.

28 January 2008

I love John Cleese and I love Rowan Atkinson and I love most of what they've made. Whoopi Goldberg is a fabulous actress, and Lanei Chapman is a beauty and a pleasure to watch. But that's all the good I can think of to say about this film. These actors' talents are completely wasted in this movie. All the characters are clichés and stereotypes and occasionally act as if they were cartoon characters. It's not enough to cast two comedians to make a good or funny movie. You need a good story, a good director and gags that are funny too. All sadly missing here. Rowan Atkinson does not match his silly role as an Italian. It's not enough to try to imitate an Italian accent to be funny, or to repeat some of the mimics from Mr. Bean. Well, my 5-year old daughter did laugh at the gags, so if your style is simple slapstick humour without sophistication rather than British/English humour or the type of humour you'll find in "The Big Lebowsky", then you might like this movie. But then again, if it is to be slapstick, then I much prefer the classics such as Laurel and Hardy.

1 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Secret Things (2002)

3/10

Could have been a good movie

21 January 2008

Was this film meant to be a porn movie, an erotic movie, a drama or a fantasy movie? It apparently wants to be all but as a result of mixing it all up is neither. If this was chosen as one of the 10 best movies in France, it says more about the current quality level of French film production than about this movie, and combined with the relatively high note on IMDb it looks like plotting two beautiful young women and having them pose more or less undressed throughout the film has been enough to lift this movie up from what should have been a very low evaluation in my humble opinion. Not one single actor seems to have more than very basic acting skills. The characters are stereotypes and the actors unable to add life to their roles through facial expressions, voice or gestures. Even the sets are stereotypes. It is as if the movie was made to be used in film schools to teach students what needs to be done to lift a movie up from the state of just putting a sequence of images onto a film roll and to make into a real movie. The subject of young women using their bodies to gain promotion is interesting enough, and a good movie could have been made over the lines of this film. But it takes professionals to do that, and professionalism is sadly missing from beginning to end. The only comfort is the very beautiful young women, acting skills or not, but if that is the only thing one is interested in, then an erotic or porn movie will do much better. Don't waste your time with this.

1 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Intimate Strangers (2004)

8/10

An honest story that could be a chapter out of real life

25 January 2007

No special effects, no computer animation, no supernatural forces, no gloss, no predictability.

Real life! There is nothing in the story that could not have happened somewhere some time. Told with beauty, humour, understatement, feelings, sensitivity. Leaving you time to think instead of throwing one visual effect after another at you. There is time for detail. Time for silence. Time for emotions. But you are never bored.

The story is simple, yet you are grabbed by it and led into its mystery.

The atmosphere marvellously represents real life in France at the time the film was made. No shining up. No simplification. This is real France. Sandrine Bonnaire and Fabrice Luchini are very convincing in their roles. The behaviour of the secretary is incredibly real.

This is French cinema near its best.

9 out of 11 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

2/10

A horror to watch

21 January 2007

Warning: Spoilers

I had programmed the video recorder to tape this film, but the first 10 or 15 minutes were missing for some reason. When I had seen the rest of the film, I realised that this mistake had saved me from wasting another 15 minutes.

If you're afraid of black cats, then this film is for you. Showing a black cat that jumps in the face of people and otherwise behave in a most 'un-catly' way is at the centre of the strategy for scaring you. As a cat lover, I hate seeing people throwing things after cats or telling staff to destroy them, by the way.

A lot has been done to create a scary atmosphere in the abbey, but yet it still failed completely on me for some reason. If a film repeatedly reminds me that this is going on in a studio set, then something is wrong.

I even guessed some of their surprises, without ever having heard of this film or book before. When Ligeia is shown being suffocated, I just knew that we would see that it was Rowena having been suffocated the next moment.

There is nothing really scary about this film, although it looks like it was intended to. The horror comes when you realise how much time you have wasted watching it.

7 out of 27 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Knife in the Water (1962)

3/10

Most interesting for a study of film history

20 January 2007

Warning: Spoilers

Warning: Contains sarcasm! Having just seen Polanski's "Repulsion" a few days before, I was expecting at least a bit more depth in the drama, but I was sadly disappointed. The best thing I can say about the 94 minutes wasted is that it reveals in the second half that the woman is actually very good-looking and sexy. The second best thing is the nice cup of tea I had.

Others have mentioned the "film gris" - B&W with very little contrast. Students of film history might want to find out if it was intended or if the quality of the film-making equipment in Poland under communism simply meant that it was the best result that could be obtained. For the general public that is less interested in such fine points, a digital brush-up of this film could do wonders, but I can already hear the Polanski bigots howling. Besides, this would be throwing good money after bad: The plot wouldn't become a bit more interesting.

Certainly, the film does build up some tension - will the hitch-hiker become violent and use the knife? Will he attempt to rape the woman? But no, nothing out of the ordinary happens. The woman is unfaithful, but that is one of humanity's oldest dramas, and it happens every day somewhere. But as others have said, what is the point making a whole movie just to show that a woman may want to have an affair? Unless you absolutely MUST see this film because it's Polanski's first, don't bother. The star in Halliwell's Film Guide must have been meant for some other movie. Contrary to wine, movies do not get better with age.

17 out of 30 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Thomas_S

Reviews

Tell Your Friends

Recently Viewed