Reviews

Rashomon (1950) has all of the charm and atmosphere of an Akira Kurosawa production. However the subject he explores and the tale he tells to us viewers this time round is much more unsettling and much less lighthearted than many of his mainstream movies.

I first bought Rashomon on DVD a few years ago as I had just recently became a big Kurosawa fan after having watched several of his most influential works including Ikiru (1952), The Hidden Fortress (1958) and not to mention Seven Samurai (1954). All of which had ranked well among my favourite films of all time. So I thus had to check out more. And this was recommend to me and being a fan of Murder Mysteries the plot's summary excited me.

Set in 17th century Japan, Rashomon tells the dark tale of a vicious confrontation between a ruthless bandit (Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune), a wealthy samurai (Masayuki Mori) and his beautiful wife (Machiko Kyo) during which the husband is killed and his body discovered by a local woodcutter (Another regular Takashi Shimura).

However upon going to trial all four testifier's, including the bandit, the wife, the dead man (speaks through a local medium) and the woodcutter each give four completely different accounts of what actually happened that fateful day and which make no connection whatsoever with the last.

Who is telling the truth? Is only one of them being honest? Are they all lying in order to present themselves in a good light? Or are they all lying to deliberately cover something up? Are they merely giving their own accounts of what happened through there own eyes and from there own points of view? Could Woodcutter's account as the only commoner and passer by on the scene truly be the genuine Revelation of what happened that afternoon? Or is he too holding back on something in order to keep the REAL TRUTH from the audience?

All the joys of a "who done it" only much more thought provoking and far more deep in the long term sense. Though a black and white film that does not prevent the camera from creating many colourful and mystifying shots aided by the use of light. The Japanese landscapes are again beautiful and the music haunting thus delivering a peaceful setting to this overall tragic tale and making this an unforgettable movie experience.

The nearest the 20th century got to Shakespere. Rashomon is without doubt ranked among my twenty movies list and is definitely in my opinion one of the top ten movies of all time in terms of being well made.

A must see classic. 9/10 stars.

First of all I am by no means a Shawshank hater nor I'm I here to troll the film or its fans for it being ranked this high on the IMDb top 250. Shawshank I must say is a rather enjoyable watch with a decent performance from Tim Robbins, a particular good one from Morgan Freeman, a decent storyline and a nice ending. However that said I would not put it anywhere near my top 50 movies list and I'm pretty sure I could name at least 30 films, twenty of which are not even ranked in the 250 that are IMO way better than Shawshank in their use of story telling and making you study them in your head even after you've watched them many times. It would perhaps be safe to say that what ever it does for many other people it just didn't do for me. The story was fairly predictable from start to finish and although I did appreciate its ending I found it to be too much your typical Hollywood sort of ending where every things happy and all loose ends have been tied up etc. I've now seen this movie four times and I must say I still find it to be very overrated, when I see it voted number two of all time then I think of how there are so many other movies out there not even in the 250. Oh well I guess popularity polls can never be just the way one would like them to be. Overall I give The Shawshank Redemption 6/10 stars I would have given it a seven or a eight only with the amount of high votes and rankings its got over the years on this site, I just felt it wasn't in need of such charity. As stated above a very enjoyable prison drama but just nowhere near in the same league as The Godfather, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogies. But hey thats only my opinion and thats what makes us all different isn't it?

Okay so yes I do agree very much that Star Wars episode I The Phantom Menace will never be as stunning as other Star Wars films such as "A New Hope, "The Emipre Strikes Back, "Return of the Jedi or "Revenge of the Sith" which are all some of my favourite movies. However I do not believe that it is worthy of all the badmouthing it has received over these last lot of years by many critics.

As regardless of some of the stuff it lacked in certain places I felt it made up for in other areas in the plot, acting and effects etc. Star Wars episode I The Phantom Menace told us the start of the saga involving two Jedi knights Qui-Gon Jinn(Liam Nesson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi(Ewan McGregor) who while on a mission to end the greedy trade federations blockade of the planet Naboo and restore peace to the Galatic Republic have to stop and have there starship repaired on the Hutt dictatorship planet of Tattoine, where they discover the young slave boy Anakin Shywalker who's dream is to one day fly away in a spaceship and train to become a great Jedi knight.

Gui-Gon who believes strongly in young Skywalker chooses to take him with them back to the Jedi council to have him trained in the ways of the force, unaware that the path way he is taking will change him into the evil Sith lord we all now from the originals as Darth Vader.

Another character that deserves a mention is Padme who was played perfectly by Nataile Portman. She is such a cute actress IMO.

When I ask some of my friends why they disliked this film they usually blame it on the one same thing Jar Jar Binks, who I must say yes can be a bit annoying a lot of the time, although I must confess that I did find him rather hilarious in the battle between the Gungans and the federations droid armies.

What I would say to people who hated The Phantom Menace due to Jar Jar is to just ignore him and not let him spoil the whole episode for you and concentrate on the rest of the story.

The character who impressed me the most I would have to say is Qui-Gon Jinn due to the great acting from Liam Nesson who give yet another wonderful performance.

Darth Maul was an excellent new villain and he, Gui-Gon and Obi-Wan have a great fight towards the end of the film, which has very good light sabre effects and is set in a rather interesting location.

To be honest the only problems that I have with this movie are the pod race on Tattoine carrying on for a bit to long, the way it sometimes doesn't connect to the original trilogy very well in parts and there not being enough scenes with Darth Maul featured in them.

Overall this movie is not perfect and by no means flawless. However I think it has been trolled enough over the years and its time to look for the more positive parts in the film which believe me do be come visible to your eyes once you watch it a certain number of times.

Overall a Star Wars episode that is more good than it is bad ( Despite what others would tell you IMO ) I give episode one the Phantom Menace a well deserved 7/10 stars. Nothing beats " The Empire Strikes Back " though!

I watched this film when it was broadcast on channel four last Christmas and I was so blown away by it that I had to buy the movie on DVD. Coming from a true fan of murder mystery TV shows with my all-time favourite series being Midsomer Murders, I can tell you this has to be one of the best detective dramas ever to be adapted from one of Agatha Christie's novels. Peter Ustinov gives a wonderful performance as Christie's world famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who along with his sidekick has to solve three violent shootings on a luxury cruise ship sailing off the coast of Egypt. The story is full of red herrings, great and really well acted characters and lots of fantastic humour. It is also very gripping with a crime that is forever tricky to work out and a truly unpredictable killer gives the film a perfect ending. I would suggest to all fans of classic British Murder Myestries to see this 1970's Agatha Christie tale but you will have to be prepared to be blown away by it. I overall give Death on the Nile 8/10 stars.

ONE OF THE BEST DETECTIVE STORIES EVER WRITTEN!

It was just last mouth that I saw Seven Samurai for my first time after reading hundreds of other good fan comments about it on this site, so in the end I became far too curious about the film and had to watch it for myself to see what the great fuss was all about and I of course got the DVD. The first time I watched this work of art I was blown away with joy and amazement due to just how super director Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece really was and I only wished I had listened to everyone else's comments on the IMDb Site much sooner. In fact Seven Samurai was so good I had to watch it again the next night to get all the brilliant scenes of this epic tale into my mind forever. Then I watched it again last Saturday and only after viewing it for the third time do I feel worthy enough to comment on this early 1950's classic. Well to start, the story is wonderful, the acting is truly outstanding, the Japanesse locations are beautiful and the script is super. Kurosawa is without doubt one of the greatest directors that ever lived!

THE STORY: I'm sure you're all familiar with the plot in Seven Samurai so I'll try not to go into too much detail. In sixteenth-century Japan a poor farming village under threat from an evil gang of ruthless bandits whose only desire is to steal their rice and barley crops every year decide to hire seven poor and hungry samurai to help train and protect them. This quest however does not seem an easy one due to having no real money to pay the fighters. Then they hire their first warrior the old but brave samurai Kambei Shimada who soon helps them find the other six strong men that they need. The farmers then head off back home to their village to await the arrival of their new guests. The next hour or so is great as we get to see the relationship between the farmers and samurai changing as they come to like each other much better and start to understand each others' differences. At first they are strangers who do not get along very well due to either, fear or misunderstanding each others' way of life. Great story lines here!

THE ACTING: The actors in this film were truly outstanding as they each brought their character to life in an unbelievable way, as they delivered to us viewers many different humorous moments, exciting and gripping sequences and some very touching and emotional scenes. My favourite character from the movie was Kikuchiyo the wacky member of the warriors group who was not quite a real samurai but appeared it was his dream to become one as he insisted in coming back to the farmers village with the other six samurai to prove them wrong about him. His character changes dramatically through the film as when we first see him he appears to be a comical person who enjoys drinking and looking for adventure, then in later scenes we start to feel for him as we learn all about his past and how similar his background once was to all of the farmers, then we see him fight bravely in the battle against the bandits, so we then realise just how worthy he is of the name samurai and of the respect of the others. Wonderful performances from all the actors!

THE LOCATIONS: The Japanesse landscapes in the movie are beautiful and create a peaceful scene to the story plus with the help from brilliant directing we get to see them from lots of different angles. One of the most beautiful pieces of Kurosawa's directing talents is when the samurai are travelling to the village and stop by a waterfall where they look down and see Kikuchiyo jump into the stream below to catch a fish for his dinner.

THE SCRIPT AND DIRECTING: The writing for this film was excellent and really made it easy for us to understand all the characters. Akira Kurosawa is one of the best directors ever who did some great movies in the past but after seeing Seven Samurai there is no doubt in my mind that this was his all-time masterpiece. It's quite sad that he will not be making any more brilliant productions like this ever again. He is well up there with all the other world famous directors.

OVERALL: This was truly the masterpiece of its time in the 1950's and is still by far one of the best films ever made even to this very day. Seven Samurai has stepped up from being a movie that I was curious about to my 2nd favourite film of all time and would suggest to all fans of classic films to see it. Overall Seven Samurai deserves nothing less than a full 10/10 gold stars.

WATCH IT AS SOON AS YOU GET THE CHANCE TO!!!!!

The young ones clearly was one of the greatest comedies ever written for the British BBC TV.Although I was not born until early 1988 which was a good lot of years after the show had ended I very soon picked up on all the shows jokes and quotes.I saw my first ever episode of The young ones about 8 years ago and just could not stop laughing.The show was set in Thatchers Britain back in 1982 in the middle of the city of London and was about the lives and times of four rather looney university students who pretty much just sat around in their dump of a flat all day and never really actually bothered to go into college.The main characters were Rik the peoples poet who was always showing off about how great he claimed he was, Vyvyan the hard man who loved to smash things up(very often their TV set if he did not like what was on the channels) Mike the cool person who was the leader of their group and Neil the always bored Hippie who was always giving off about having to be the one to make the meals.There was also the actor Alexei Sayle who played many different and hilarious roles in all the episodes.

My favourite episode of The young ones is called "Bomb" in this episode an atomic bomb lands into the students flat next to their fridge so the gang must figure out what is the best possible solution to this problem before world war three breaks out or something however something far more worse happens,the TV man calls at their door and they have just found out that Mike has not bothered to pay the Television licence.This episode almost had me in tears with laughter.Other favourite episodes of mine are called "Sick" and "Summer Holiday" which are again hilarious.

Overall the best things about this show were the humorous characters and actors,the great quotes and story lines not to mention the way they always had a famous music band on playing a cool song from the time half way into each episode.These bands included the singers Madness and Motorhead plus many more good artists.My favourite characters were vyvyan and Rik who were played by Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson whose good comedy script writing talents went on to make "Bottom" another really good show in later years.This was a classic British show and I wish it had made more than just 12 episodes as do a lot of other fans I think and I would suggest to all fans of good British comedy to watch this show.So overall The Young Ones deserves 10/10 stars.

A few years ago when I was a bit younger, I used to not mind this show(I'm now 16). But when I saw it again last month I must say that it was just plain boring and annoying to me. It's still full of the same old rubbish and nothing has changed.

It is all about two twin brothers called Wayne and Lucien Cramp who have nothing at all in common and look nothing like each other. Lucien is like a nature boy who's always hanging round an old swamp and Wayne's like a hard man who likes playing with metal and junk from a scrap yard for some reason. They both dislike each other and are always fighting and at war with each other and after watching several or more episodes of the series this becomes really irritating and just makes you want to jump into your TV set and strangle them both.

Overall this show has its few moments but for most of the time its just annoying. I'm shocked its still on TV after three or four years now. I give The Cramp Twins 3/10 stars. There are many far more impressive kids shows on TV today, do not waste too much time on this one.

At Last Frodo and Sam's long and deadly journey to destroy the one ring comes to an end as they reach Mordor in this outstanding work of art by Peter Jackson.

Aragorn the true good king of Gondor has taken his place as the king and became who he was born to be in order to defend his people from the evil dark lords growing armies with the help of the land of Rohan and Gandalf the White wizard.

The battle scenes at Minas Tirith are by far the most ingenious peace of film making I've ever had the joy to view in my life of movie watching.

Back to the hobbits Frodo and Sam. I have to say that Gollum is great in this film as we get to see his true love and passion for the ring and what evil things he can really do just to steal it back for himself. As he leads Frodo and Sam to the lair of the giant spider Shelob, which was also done perfectly in filming. Also I loved the way we found out about Gollum's past life and how he first came upon the evil of the one ring in the opening scenes of the movie.

The music is Fab! I own the soundtrack on CD. The ending is very happy but at the same time heartbreaking and very unforgettable.

This is a must see movie watch it as soon as you can and if you have already seen it then watch it again as it only gets better every time you view this work of art.

This film has to get 10/10 stars. Truly Outstanding!!

I would just like to give my special thanks to the writer and creator of Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien for making these excellent movies possible by giving us such a classic series of novels as inspiration.

This epic easily deserves its 3rd place in the top 250 films on IMDb any day. The Return of the King has now become my favourite movie of all time and to me this is the greatest masterpiece ever made in film history.

Oh and in fact I would say that this film along with the other two parts of the LOTR trilogy are ten times better than the Godfather trilogy!

When I was a kid my all time favourite show was the Goosebumps TV show and of course the books as well. Some of them really scared me and give me nightmares. My favourite character was Slappy the living dummy.

I'm now 16 and I must say that the show is not at all scary to me anymore as I've watched many far more shocking things since the Goosebumps days. We all agree that the show was made for children which we all were when we loved it.

This is a really good show for children to view, but when you get older its just plain funny. My favourite episodes and books are still Welcome to Dead House, The Haunted Mask, Ghost Beach, The Ghost Next Door, Night of the living Dummy 2 and A Night in Terror Tower.

I would overall give RL Stines Goosebumps 10/10 stars as a good young person's creepy show. It will always remain a classic to me due to all the little thrills RL Stine and his wonderful book series give me whilst I was growing up.