Reviews

God knows everybody knows this is not a very good musical but I don't know why i like it. The music is great and because i love Olivia Newton John i block everything bad about this film and just enjoy the music and most of all Olivia Newton John.

There's no doubt this film has good intentions and knows it audience target but in the end result its a hot mess of a film its a cliche of unoriginality borrowed from other films, its overwritten melodrama its predictable, it is purposely emotionall and manipulates the audience to drag out a bucket of tears. The are far better films that depict the misery of the human condition give me a Ken Loach film or a film by the Dardenne Brothers any day. A talented cast totally wasted in this prententious film.

This film has to to be one of the years worst films of 2019. Prentious boring and not funny.

Obviously this film has good intentions in telling the story that it wants to tell but unfortunately it falls flat with a way to familiar story I have seen told in films way to many times about how rough it is to be young living in an urban ghetto side of town. It was predictable mundane and at times a bit boring.

I am a big admirer of Japanese cinema, film makers like Kurusawa, Koreeda, Oshima Imamura and the list goes on. And also from time to time I enjoy slow cinema, but in the case of Naomi Kawase Still The Water and her other previous film "Mourning Forest" for witch reasons i don't understand why the jury awarded it the grand prize there were far better films competing that year like Russia's entry and brilliant The Banishment. Still the water had an interesting concept for a great story and its tropical location and beautiful cinematography, still the screenplay falls flat the characters seem to sleepwalk through the whole film. I truly believe Naomi makes film for her and friends and she is unaware that audiences outside her realm are falling asleep to her films. i give this film a D.

Pretentious boring and who cares, I could not believe this film won the best film prize at the 2012 Rome film festival it must have been a bad year for films in the official competition. The film about bored teenagers in El Paso, TX who look like there were ripped off Calvin Kline a fashion ad, bad acting bad sex, and of course stereotyping border patrol agents as bad people who are to get you and make life miserable. Larry Clark should learn from his greater film like Kids and Bully and remember when he could actually make films and not bore audiences to death. nothing much to say about a film with nothing much to tell.

Tsai Ming-Liangs film Stray Dogs falls a bit short of being a great film but its not a disappointing one either. An existential and slow paced character study of a homeless drunk father and his two children living as the titles says "Stray Dogs". The films story reflects the desperation and misery of being homeless and a supermarket worker who becomes fond of the children and tries to rescue them from there misery. Downfall of the film is the careless editing of the long meandering scenes that seems to wear out there welcome after two minutes. This film could have been a great one if it only ran under two hours or less.

I am a huge fan of Kim Ki Duk I think he is a master of Korean Cinema such masterpieces as Pieta, 3 Iron, Samaritan Girl, The Bow. But like every great director there is always that one film that is not there greatest work and for Kim its Breathe. A married woman who falls for a convicted murderer on death row she seems almost obsessively infatuated and in love with him, sounds like an interesting concept for a story on screen, but I had a hard time getting immersed in these characters I felt I wanted more to get to know and get that melancholy romance feeling between them, but I seem to get lost in the story not that it was hard to follow but I didn't seem to have a reason to care about these two I felt pretty empty at the end of this film unfortunately.

Not necessarily a bad film but not a film I am impressed with, five brothers come together for a wedding during the 2010 world cup, Dad falls ill on the wedding day. The wedding gets put on hold and everything in between falls apart and everybody's personal issues comes in focus and gets resolved in 95 minutes its a bit melodramatic over written lacks wit or chemistry between the characters it felt like i was watching a Spanish TV pilot remake of Brothers & Sisters on the big screen.

I tried to like this film but the characters became a bit annoying after 20 minutes of watching this film.

Laurent Cantet director of the Cannes palm D'or and Oscar Nominated "The Class" latest effort "Foxfire" did little to impress me a film about a group of teenage girls in upstate New York in 1950's who call them selves "Foxfire" they are angry and out to cause trouble and who can blame them I blame the director of this film and the dialect coach and casting director. The ensemble performance by the female cast played out like amateur actors in a B film the dialogue sounded to Canadian who can blame Laurent Cantet he is French he probably couldn't notice the difference and the dialect coach must have been deaf. The film itself stretched out its welcome running 2hours and 20minutes I felt the film was going no where after watching it for 90 minutes. And the fact that the film won a best actress prize at The San Sebastian International Film Festival Katie Coseni the jury must not have had much to choose from to give a best actress award.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan just won a Palm D'Or for "Winter Sleep" at Cannes 2014 so I felt compelled to watch for a second time "Once Upon A Time In Anatolia" i didn't care to much for it the first time around but what i liked about was the beautiful cinematography by Gokhan Tiriyaki. I still feel the same about it now , a few things about the story popped in my mind i don't quite understand, number one the police, prosecutor, inspector and grave digger all go on a night road trip with two brothers who apparently confess to a murder and buried the body out in the middle of nowhere, one of the brothers was drunk and the other mentally challenged, At night wouldn't it be wiser to search during the day? and number 2 how drunk was the suspect to even drive half way across the country along with his menatlly challenged brother to even bury the body. It just doesn't make sense to me. The long shots extended dialogue these characters carry are never interseting. I love the cinema i love 3 hour films with limited dialogue to name a a few Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse, Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice and Ermano Olmi's The Tree Of Wooden Clogs there was something special involving and intriguing about those films. I think prentious snobbery drives critics and the jury at cannes in 2011 to reward this film and i hope Winter Sleep is surprises me.

Watching sloths on the discovery channel would have been more interesting. This movie had intentions of being very deep and thought provoking without the characters actually speaking, however, the characters were not able to develop themselves or their relationship enough through the muteness to keep myself interested. The movie is comprised of long shots of the characters walking through the mountains. I could walk out of the room and come back five minutes later to the same scene of walking. The director is relying on the beauty of the scenery to carry the movie for her. Instead of directing a movie and developing characters, she should have been a photographer. If they cut out about thirty minutes of walking from the movie i might of been able to see the depth the movie was trying achieve.

Fedric Dumonts debut feature that was a well deserved winner at the 2009 Karlovy Vary International Film Fest Crystal Globe for best film and actor. A Psychological look at a father and son relationship. A manic depressive and suicidal man confides the trust of his son to keep a dark secret with devastating consequences takes a toll on the whole family. Beautifully shot flawlessly written and directed this gem of a film deserved more exposure than what it got internationally. Olivier Gouurmet and Martin Nissen give outstanding performances. I cant wait to see what else Fredric Dumont will create with his gifted talent. Take not American film makers this is great film making.

this was fascinating and brilliant doc in my opinion ahead of its time compared to this generation of reality TV and social media. the film focus and the parisian working class in serious of interviews and a brief look at there daily lives and conducting interviews about happiness, the struggles and goals and dreams. i am 44 and i was fascinated watching this film and how life was, and how it has changed in over 53 years. The fascinating film is for an acquired taste for an audience that can appreciate this type of film. This Film won the international critics prize at the 1960 Cannes film festival at the time of its release it was not popular with most critics or audience.

Despite thee good intentions of "the Good Life" a coming of age film a about teenage a boy who's parents get killed on there second honeymoon trip to Paris is left alone living with his Granpa at the same time dealing with his puberty and sexual awakening with a crush on his cousin and teacher. I felt the movie was over rated and did not find myself caring or interested in any of these character except for the Grandfather wonderfully played by Luis Cuenca the only character i liked and enjoyed watching the rest of the characters especially the lead Fernando Ramallo did less to impress with there performance. I film in my opinion did not deserve the Special Jury prize at 1997 Karlovy Vary film festival.