Reviews

I was trying to think of what adjectives I could use to describe this absolute masterpiece - by far the best of Welles' movies - and perhaps the word that suits it best is "haunting". The movie has a very odd quality from the first minutes, it seems as though we are looking through a window INTO this very time of 15th century England, and watching real people go through ordinary and extraordinary dramas and foibles. The sense is one of overwhelming nostalgia for a golden past, forever lost, and in kings and heroes and rascals who are far larger than life.

The performances are simply remarkable, from John Gielgud's guilt ridden, anguished king who grieves that his past sins have caught up with him in the person of his unruly son, Keith Baxter as that son, Prince Hal - good looking and full of mischief - and yet coldly imperious when the time comes to reject a great friend and mentor. Norman Rodway as Hotspur, captures the very essence of that epic warrior...and Orson Welles give his greatest performance as that epitome of hedonistic innocence....Sir John Falstaff.

I love this movie and could watch it every week. The production, despite the flaws of sound (which actually ADD to the sense of reality to me), is amazing - the sets are perfectly atmospheric - even touches like the flourishes of trumpets that punctuate Harry Percy's rant, are simply...perfect.

Perhaps what impresses me most here, is that like Olivier, Welles had the rare ability to CONTROL the plays and manage them, rather than be managed BY them. It's hard to explain, but these men became like co- creators with Shakespeare.

I cannot recommend this film highly enough. If you see only ONE play of Shakespeare on film, let it be this one. It will show you what a genius can do with the material of another genius.

Maybe it is unfair of me to write a review as I've only seen the first entry, Richard II, but from the previews it seems to set the standard. While I appreciate the effort to mount such a Shakespearean production, and there are fine actors here such as Jeremy Irons, and Patrick Stewart, etc., the overall effect is very flat and disappointing. In the attempt to seem "natural" the creators have forgotten that this is...THEATER in solid caps, and was never meant to seem "natural". Perhaps I am not critiquing the actors as much as the production - the only productions of these plays I have seen that really work as theatrical and philosophical pieces are Orson Welle's Falstaff and Olivier's Richard III. The styles are very different but they both, artistically, transport one to a completely different era, in all ways. Welles especially knew how to handle Shakespeare in a way that he, Welles, is in charge of the plays - not they in charge of him. By all means, watch this BBC production, but if you want to see how it really should be done - see the two films I recommend. The BBC versions will seem like stale beer besides them.

I forced myself to watch two episodes of this just to be fair....display of naked a..hole-ism. The last one I just watched, which prodded me to write this, which featured a chef named Brian, just simply appalled me. This is not about good cooking or inventiveness or even a real competition - it's about just being a nasty, vicious, spiteful, disgusting A..HOLE. Seriously, if I lost this competition to this really nasty Brian person, I would have spat on him. There are some things one doesn't do for money, even in America, and I'd rather lose one cooking show than live my whole life as a pathetic...well....a..hole.

This show appeals to the absolute WORST in human nature, and I guess I don't enjoy watching that and I won't be watching it again. It is true that the Food Network has too many competition shows, and not enough prime time shows that actually show normal people how to cook. Instead they are wasteful and I'm just sick of the hyper-competitiveness to cook effete and pointless dishes. This show is the absolute worst though. Alton Brown, you should be really ashamed of this.

Hopefully this review will be published as I think this needs to be read - especially by the Food Network. You've hit bottom, guys.

This is such an excellent movie that I cannot help but wonder if these negative reviews are part of a deliberate campaign to bury this movie. Or the public has become so incredibly stupid that they cannot understand a truly profound film.

There are spoilers ahead:

"Knowing" is a mystery thriller that results in the literal end of the world, in a way that might actually happen some day . A strange, morbid little girl deposits a slip of paper with dozens of lines of numbers on it, into her school's time capsule. When the capsule is opened 50 years later, Cage's son gets her envelope and Cage, an MIT scientist who has recently lost his wife, becomes fascinated by this series of numbers. He has revealed up to this point that he believes life is random, without meaning or purpose. As most people would however, he instinctively tries to find a pattern or purpose to the numbers -what did this girl mean? His attention is drawn to a series of figures that he realizes represents 9/11. He then comes to understand that part of the number string represents significant dates with mass deaths. This leads to his eventual discovery that some people CAN indeed foretell the future, horrifyingly so, but that even such knowledge, doesn't mean we can prevent it! The point of the movie ultimately is that there is both purpose and meaning in life but much of life is pre-determined. That is a philosophical issue that Cage assigns his class to ponder in their term paper - determinism vs randomness, which reflects the despair in his own mind after losing his wife.

Many of the "plot holes" really aren't. Viewers didn't understand or missed, parts of the movie. For example:

1. Picking only these "white" children. This is not true at all. Cage's boy at the end says that the aliens can only take those "who have heard the call". This could be children...or adults (as the original girl Lucinda continued to hear the call as an adult but killed herself in despair instead of waiting). We just don't see who else might have been saved as the story focuses on Cage and these two children. We DO see that there are MANY ships leaving Earth that could have BOTH children and adults who have "heard the call".

These could be of ALL racial and ethnic backgrounds as they are leaving different places on Earth, and there could also be adults to raise the children on the new Earth (or the aliens might have done this).

2. The aliens not being able to communicate or looking like Billy Idol clones. They had to adopt a relatively "acceptable" human disguise and they came up with the 80's punk look. No matter what they picked it would have been dated at some point and the filmmakers had to pick something that would make them stand out from "normal" people.

The aliens DO communicate...to those who can HEAR them, which probably is some kind of evolutionary leap. That is why they are only interested in THOSE people. Maybe the others are just part of why the world is so screwed up and the ones who can "hear" have a chance to create a different world.

3. Why give the future to a little girl to have it coded into streams of numbers and not tell people directly? Because the aliens DIDN'T give the information to Lucinda or people like her.....they were able to hear or intuit it in some manner and that is what distinguishes them as potential survivors for a new human race. Lucinda probably wasn't the ONLY one, but the movie had to have a focal point for the plot to revolve upon. Lucinda created this mystery as she picked up on these dates and numbers and put them into some kind of order out of chaos...which is what humans do.

4. Why didn't the aliens warn the world in general? Why didn't they STOP the end of the world? Because they could only take those who could "hear the call". Despite their advanced technology, they could not stop the solar flare as it's too big an event, nor could they take the entire human race, so some selection criteria was necessary. They picked those they thought would survive in a new world.

Even if they DID warn the world in general....there was nothing that could be done to change the situation or save everyone, and it would only have caused more panic.

Some ascribe cruelty to separating children from their parents, but this is a "salvage" operation, where only a few can be taken. The visions imparted to the children help them understand the gravity of the situation so they can prepare themselves psychologically.

5. Another criticism is that the behavior of Cage's character throughout this crisis is "implausible". This is ridiculous. How on earth does one behave during a plane crash....or the END OF THE WORLD????? No one knows. There could be a vast array of potential responses but the primary response that Cage shows repeatedly is the desire to save others and to prevent their pain and death. That is perhaps, the best, and most noble human impulse. Cage's actions may actually have saved lives and be part of the calculation of the death total for that event. At the end, when Cage goes to his father's house, he has become reconciled....to his father, to the end of life, to fate. For each of us, our death IS the End of the World and we must learn to accept it.

THIS IS A GREAT AND PROFOUND MOVIE that makes you think. It shows the end of the world, but it is a movie about faith. Those who have none and can conceive of none will probably hate it. But "everyone else" should give it a chance.

I may be going overboard with the rating, but I would definitely give it no less than 8, and I want to encourage people to see this movie. I kind of rolled my eyes at the beginning as I thought it was a bit indulgent and over the top, but once the story got rolling, I was captivated by the lead character, British filmmaker Noah Arkwright, and his stumbling battle towards both sobriety and becoming a family man. Noah is so abrasive, profane and cynical, that while he's bitingly funny, at first you don't feel much sympathy. He reminded me of Gordon Ramsay. But when he's in the sober house and encounters the spirit of his mother, who died at his birth, I found myself deeply touched as well. We assume so much about people but it turns out we really don't know them at all and why they turned out a certain way. Noah meets the right woman and has a lovely child, but his past life of debauchery starts to catch up with him in the form of recurrent bouts of cancer. Even at its darkest this film never loses its humor or its humanity. The last half hour or so can be quite harrowing with Noah's medical treatments, but it's never depressing. The end is really, really well done and surprising, and really touched me. I don't think I will ever forget this film, and I'm eager to find my own copy now. A truly great film about addiction, sickness, spirituality, and the healing power of love.

I was frankly stunned at how BAD this movie is. The 3D is very well done, but like all the clockwork and machines the movie revels in, "Hugo" is technically brilliant, moves like an elegant automaton, and has NO heart or soul. It is dead and hollow within.

The "plot" is confusing, the script seems to be more dictated over a cell phone than written, the lead character looks like an animated corpse, and it is DULL, DULL, DULL, DULL, DULL. My boyfriend actually fell asleep. It is terrible that a technique such as 3D seems to have totally eliminated the need for a decent plot, script, characters, motivation and some essence of believability. Scorsese also has to re-learn the use of editing as the movie is too long by at least a half hour, and the pace limps slower than the villainous station cop's leg.

The acting was competent except for Sacha Baron Cohen who is nearly unwatchable as the aforementioned gendarme - if he would only get a wooden leg it would match the rest of his performance.

The "plot" manipulates emotions rather than inspires them, and is unbelievably pedantic. It's like watching Scorsese lecture a Film 101 class. ***SPOILER?*** I could not believe the scene in the library where the children actually PULL OUT A BOOK and start lecturing the audience about the history of movies up to that point. Stunningly awful.

The great irony is that George Melies made FAR FAR FAR greater movies, even with his limited technology than this putrid piece of dreck. "Hugo" is a shameful waste of $170 million dollars. The Melies clips are the ONLY part of this debacle that have life, art, wit, color, and are actually entertaining.

PULEEEZZZZZ....Marty....put down the camera for GOOD, and stay in the lecture hall. You have lost the ability to make captivating, interesting movies that speak to normal, living people. If you want to make a movie about Melies, or educate the audience....make a documentary.

JFK is an astounding achievement. Stone has taken unbelievably dense, complicated, intricate webs - not merely one - but many - of conspiracy and deceit, and woven them into an ultimate truth. Even if there are some factual errors in the movie, the bottom line conclusion is powerfully and impeccably made - that Kennedy, and probably RFK and MLK, were murdered by powerful, highly placed monied interests in the US government who stood to lose unimaginable amounts of money (and corresponding power) if these men effectively directed our country towards peace rather than war. Whatever specific theory you believe (unless you believe the ridiculous Warren Commission report), the bottom line always comes down to the same conclusion....murder for money and power.

The movie is flawlessly done. Brilliantly written, compellingly directed, well acted, unbelievably well done editing. This is Stone's greatest film and one of the greatest movies EVER made in any country at any time. Well worth investing 3.5 hours of your time if you can bear to contemplate some ultimate truths about political power and malice.

I just saw this movie on Turner (thank God for Turner or there'd be nothing to watch!) and really, surprisingly, enjoyed it. I wasn't expecting much, but it's hard to miss with early Cagney and pre-code Warners Brothers.

This movie is about a gang of slum kids who are sent to a cruelly run reformatory. There are several ethnic stereotypes - the Jewish father more interested in his business than his kid, the Black father who can barely speak coherently, etc., but I think the movie overcomes the stereotypes with its depictions of the kids' lives in the prison school. I especially liked how the black kid, Farina from the Our Gang comedies, is allowed to be a real person who comforts one of the white kids on their first scary night there, and then is allowed to become a lawyer in the all juvenile run courtroom that Cagney allows them to create. There are many touching scenes here about how the boys relate to each other and develop solidarity and understanding, while facing their common enemy in the evil warden.

The movie puts a lot of faith in the socially progressive ideas that Cagney's gangsterish character, and the school's nurse profess. Basically they think that if the kids can recreate an actual society for themselves in the school, complete with all the necessary functions of a political system, police force, court system, store, etc, that they would learn through practical experience how society should function, and be able to learn and apply these lessons directly. I think this idea is actually correct, and it would probably be a good idea in some of our own prisons! Really interesting, enjoyable movie with some excellent performances, notably Frankie Darro as the head delinquent - what a great actor he was, and it's obvious that Cagney saw himself in the kid. Dudley Digges is great as the evil warden, and Cagney...is Cagney, always charming and forceful. Wish they would show this one more often.

Pre-Code Warners Brothers....does it get any better!!!

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN HERE.

I finally broke down and watched this train wreck of a movie after the obviously rigged Oscars, out of a morbid curiosity as to why Christoph Waltz won an award over what should have been a clearly superior performance by Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy in a clearly superior movie. After all, it doesn't take great acting ability to play a Nazi. Just the right uniform and with his accent, Waltz is already at least half way there. He has a long future ahead of him recycling old Conrad Veidt roles (that Veidt did so much better 60 years ago).

Yes, I held my nose and watched this "movie". Although I do think Tarentino has made some great (and violent) movies such as "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill 1&2" in the past, this one absolutely reeks like rotting vegetation in a methane swamp. "Inglourious Basterds" has literally no saving merit or grace whatsoever, except possibly cinematography. The story line is ridiculous, the script is poorly written and makes little sense, the dialogue is achingly boring and pointless, the performances collectively are as wooden as Pinocchio's nuts. In a movie, the scenes are supposed to have a point and move the plot forward, but apparently Tarentino has progressed beyond either plots or points in his film-making as most of the scenes were endless and didn't flow into each other as much as collide. I honestly cannot find a single thing to recommend in this movie - the characters were so badly written and acted that I cannot comprehend how anyone could remotely care about them other than to feel some sense of relief when they died some horrible death and were thereby removed from the screen.

The worst part of the movie however, is the emphasis upon torture, and it is THIS, that reveals the great moral and ethical (as well as artistic) decline of America. I have known Holocaust survivors and their families, and have read of others, and I have NEVER heard or read of any of them supporting the use of torture, against even the fiendish Nazis. People who endured the horrors they did, were consumed not with a desire for a brutal revenge, but a desire for life and to build a better society, and Israel, for one thing, is the result of that desire for a wholesome life, and a belief in the future that ultimately was stronger than the Nazi cult of death.

Actions like scalping prisoners of war, beating them to death with baseball bats, sticking fingers in a woman's gunshot wounds - these are all CONTEMPTIBLE and anyone who would support or encourage such practices, even against those who are evil, is CONTEMPTIBLE. When people engage in degrading practices, they inevitably become degraded themselves, and that such activity would not only be shown on a screen, but APPLAUDED, or at best, overlooked, by an audience or reviewers, is a grave sign of moral and ethical collapse. Our WW2 soldiers did not do such horrible things, and any who might have would have been severely punished in a society that, unlike ours, still had standards of behavior, even in wartime. That was what distinguished us from the barbarism and brutality of the Germans and Japanese in WW2. Now, however, we glorify it on the screen in the name of a revenge fantasy. What's next - ripping out people's entrails? Feeding them to wild beasts? Where does this end?

When you watch this garbage, what you are ultimately doing is POISONING YOUR OWN MIND AND CHARACTER. This isn't just "fun", it becomes part of who you are and what you think and are willing to accept.

We have had a plethora in the past 10 years or so of movies that feature what I would call torture porn, such as the "Saw" series, and it is only a degraded and barbarous audience that would watch this dehumanizing garbage. These are the same degenerates who applaud waterboarding and other forms of torture because they have fallen into a moral abyss and don't even realize how far they have declined. "Inglorious Basterds" is INDEED inglorious and reflects the shame of a nation.

If you want to see a well written, sophisticated, thinking, well acted, uplifting movie about World War 2, go back to "Casablanca" which was actually created during a generation that actually FOUGHT a war against the Nazis - and won - instead of creating sadistic fantasies about it. Then tell me why the two should be ranked in the same league. Of if you want something bloodier - take a look at the original "The Dirty Dozen" that Tarentino ripped off to make this abortion. "The Dirty Dozen" had the same basic plot of an officer building an elite force to take on a mission to kill the top Nazi brass, but did it in a way to make you interested in the characters and care about their mission. The great irony about "Inglourious Basterds" is that ultimately the most sympathetic characters in the movie... became the Nazis who were tortured and murdered. Was that really the intent?

Yes, there are undoubtedly some made for TV movies, possibly the monster movies on the Sci Fi channel, that possibly are worse, but I think so many people had expectations both of Frank Miller and of this series, The Spirit, that makes this movie an exceptional disappointment.

Like so much of the soulless CGI "entertainment" offered to us, The Spirit looks great. Very striking use of black/white/red imagery and silhouettes, etc. But the plot, such as it is, is ludicrous, the writing is abominable, almost indescribably bad, to describe the "acting" as wooden would be unfair to trees, and it's just painful to watch Samuel L. Jackson's career almost literally end up in the toilet. It's pretty painful watching Tom Cruise prancing around in a Nazi uniform, but Jackson in his Field Marshall outfit inspired nothing but prolonged howls from the audience that watched this with me. I think only extreme inertia and a very large bag of popcorn prevented us from leaving altogether.

It's a shame that so much money and effort goes into producing SUCH A BAD PRODUCT. I guess this all time stinker - literally the worst movie I have ever seen in a theater - is a sign of the very depressing times, when you spend way too much money to ingest a piece of exceedingly colorful cardboard that only ends up giving you a bad case of gas.

Don't waste your money or time on this all time stinker, and let's all pray that Samuel L. Jackson finally find a project worthy of his considerable talents and charisma.

The following may contain spoilers.

This is actually two movies in one (or two unhappily wedded plot lines in one) - the George Reeves portion, reviewing the last few years of his life, prior to Superman and up to his death, is simply excellent. Ben Affleck does a phenomenal job in portraying Reeves. He creates a thoroughly likable, funny, rather intelligent bloke who, while he doesn't take himself or life too seriously, would like to make something of himself in his profession. His story of a bittersweet success that traps him, is very compelling. Diane Lane is also excellent as his somewhat desperate and sometimes calculating, married mistress. All the people in the Reeves part of the movie are excellent, and the film looks really good.

Now for the bad news. Adrien Brody, alas, is not remotely convincing as a detective in any time, place, era, or circumstance. The only point in the movie where I felt he was not out of place is when he gets beaten by thugs. Brody, unfortunately for him, looks like a natural victim. I like to say he has a face like a question mark. He can play a scholar, a musician, a poet, a writer, a scientist - but NOT a man of action (King Kong was also dreadful), or a detective. He's simply not believable in this type of role. No reflection on his acting ability - to some extent you have to LOOK the part. Try putting Orlando Bloom into one of Russell Crowe's roles, and vice versa. Doesn't work.

The whole Brody/Simo part of the movie is trite and hackneyed. We don't need to know about his domestic situation and I for one, don't give a damn, Scarlett. The whole separated/divorced father trying to connect with his alienated son and being thwarted by his bitchy wife is just so old and formulaic and unnecessary, especially when placed against the freshness and vitality of the Reeves plot. No, we don't learn anything more than we need to know about this character through his pathetic domestic situation and I don't care what kind of lessons he supposedly learns at the end. It's like Movie Psychobabble Script for Dummies 101. I'd love to get my hands on this film and just gut the whole Adrien Brody story line and fill out the Reeves story line.

Alas, Hollywood will never stop reaching for sentimentality and manipulating us. Just tell the story - that's enough.

It's very sad reading some of these comments to realize how generally uneducated most Americans(in particular) are about the classics or they would realize how badly Wolfgang Petersen has treated this story. WARNING - POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD.

He has compressed the siege of Troy which took about 10 years, if I remember correctly, into a time period of seeming a couple of weeks. There is no sense of the passage of time at all. Several important characters such as the prophetess Cassandra and Priam's wife (and mother of Paris and Hector) Hecuba, are missing completely. Others are unemphasized in their importance like Ajax, who seems to be a miss placed Hells Angel in his brief appearance, or over emphasized like Briseis. Important events in the story are actually shown incorrectly. Menelaus was not killed during the siege, he actually left Troy - WITH HELEN. Helen didn't escape with Aeneas to any river anywhere - she went back home ultimately with her husband. Moreoever, Paris did not just steal Helen - he stole most of Menelaus treasure as well!! These are just a few points - this movie is so inaccurate on so many levels.

Petersen deliberately got so much wrong in the name of creating a spectacle and manipulating plot points and it didn't do him any good. THe movie is visually splendid but lacking in soul and depth and texture. It's plodding and one doesn't ultimately care about almost any of the characters. There is virtually no humor in this movie at all, nor any of the little incidents that epic filmakers of the past put into their movies to make the text more accessible - like interchanges between the ordinary citizens of the city, some event that shows how the men have bonded in some way other than war. I have to comment on the "music" in this movie as well - the wailing is extremely annoying, repetitive and totally unnecessary - it does not create a mood other than extreme irritation.

The one exception to this dreary failure is Brad Pitt's portrayal of Achilles. I was quite surprised and didn't think him up to it. I had forgotten Fight Club apparently. Pitt is masterful - a superb performance that totally nails the character. This is perhaps the best performance I have seen all year (in mainstream films). However, I missed the first minute or so of the opening credits but I don't believe that Petersen ever explains why Achilles is so fearless - it's because he is literally invulnerable except for a small spot on his heel. He knows he can't be killed and very unlikely that anyone would find that spot (and indeed, Paris does literally with the assistance of the god, Apollo in the Iliad). This is a major factor that creates the main character's psychological make-up and it's left out!

I would give this movie a solid 2.5 out of 4 ONLY for Brad Pitt's performance and for the staging and cinematography. If you want to see a big epic, the old ones of Spartacus, Ben-Hur, etc. are still the best. They have hearts and souls and characters one can care about - not just impressive digital cinematics.