Reviews

I'm baffled as to why viewers are so upset that Julie Christie didn't look like the character described in the book. Why not focus on her excellent acting? Others claim that she was too old to play Bathsheba. Wrong. She was 25 at the time, only a year or two older than the character by the end of the book.

Bathsheba Everdene is strong-willed, vain, hard-working, loyal, stubborn, committed, obsessed, capricious, dedicated, and intelligent, among many other things. Christie truly nails the character. She shows all the sides of Bathsheba's personality. You don't have to like her. Often, you don't. Often, you sympathize with her, too. Christie's performance shows Bathsheba's development, from silly and impetuous young girl to a far more mature and wiser woman.

Alan Bates is the other true star here, as Gabriel Oak. Some viewers regard his performance as stuffy or boring. I don't. Look more closely at his face; Oak is constantly playing a part before other people, lest they discover his love for Bathsheba, and Bates uses a quick look, a slight change in facial expression, to convey Oak's state of mind. He's not just good; he's perfect. I believed him completely as Oak. Bates was one of the screen's greatest actors, but sadly underrated and under-appreciated, even today. It's time for him to receive the recognition he so richly deserves.

Nathaniel Parker is the saving grace of this TV adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel. He doesn't make me forget Alan Bates in the same role (Gabriel Oak), but he is mesmerizing. As another reviewer noted, Parker plays the role with more emotion below the surface.

Paloma Baeza, unfortunately, is completely, drearily wrong for the part of Bathsheba Everdene. She captures none of the character at all; no wonder I'd never heard of her before. She is, flat-out, boring. The character is a mass of contradictions, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes maddening, but never boring, as Baeza is. Perhaps she thought that if she just turned up for work knowing her lines, she wouldn't be expected to actually act, or anything. Wrong. She's terrible.

The film is beautifully directed and, for the most part, well-acted, but Baeza casts a pall on the entire production. Even given the way the proposal scene was written, she could have brought some emotion to it, rather than regarding Nathaniel Parker with a facial expression that suggests, "Are we done for the day? I'd like to get out of this costume and find the nearest pub."

Really, how do movies like this even make it past the idea stage? This movie is chock-full of all the worst stereotypes about women and men: 1. Women are desperate to be in relationships.

2. Women in relationships are desperate to get married.

3. Married women are deeply unhappy.

4. Single women egg each other on to have affairs with married men.

5. Married men meet hot single women and promptly have affairs with them.

6. Single women have large support groups of gay men.

7. Men in relationships never want to get married.

8. Women in relationships can only get married if they threaten to leave the relationship unless it leads to marriage.

9. Single women are eager to throw themselves at single men who haven't given even a sign of interest.

10. Everyone out there has a soul mate on hand.

Jennifer Aniston may be acceptable as an actress, but one of the easiest ways to kill as movie, is to cast her in it. She has a long string of thoroughly awful movies to her credit. Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, and Scarlett Johansson are very talent actresses, who are simply wasting their time in this waste of two hours.

This movie is one of the worst I have ever seen; it was playing on a long-haul flight, and my choices were to watch the movie, or watch the kid across the aisle and one row up puking into his blanket. It was a tough call.

I loved this film. It manages to make the characters sympathetic (well, most of them) concerning the problems they have with their relationship.

Gloria Swanson, as Leila, is in a dusty marriage with a husband who barely notices her presence (though he does notice her absence). The film shows very well why she is tired of married life, and why she is susceptible to a sweet-talking con man, without making her selfish or demanding. The reaction shots of Leila at the dinner table on her anniversary, while her workaholic husband (late to dinner again) eats salted scallions with gusto and pushes bride-and-groom dolls out of the way of his plate, are perfect.

The show is stolen - and stolen effortlessly - by Elliott Dexter as Jim, Leila's neglectful husband. After losing Leila to another man, Jim literally cleans up his act, shaving off his mustache, working out to lose the middle-aged spread, and dressing neatly. There are several shots of Jim at home, lonely and thinking of Leila, including a powerful scene when he finds one of her old dresses in the closet. The film gives the audience the advantage of watching Jim's transformation along with Leila. It isn't just the exterior that's more attractive; we come to know much more about the kind of person Jim really is, and we see how completely different he is from Leila's second husband, Schuyler (Lew Cody). Dexter shines as the before-and-after Jim, who is determined, after discovering Schuyler's true character, to win Leila back, if he can. The film's most touching moment comes when Jim and Leila discover that they are standing under the mistletoe, and Jim talks of what he has lost.

Definitely worth watching.

Vidor shines as Judith, the only truly strong and compassionate member of a strictly patriarchal family. Her brother, David, is so downtrodden by their father that it's a surprise he's able even to tie his shoes, rather than asking Dad to do it for him.

Other reviewers have already outlined the plot, so I won't rehash it; I will, however, point out that Nan, who is pregnant by David, is also married to him. This is not an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, which would have been horrific by 1921 standards. The two are secretly married, but Nan's father, having been paid by David's father, tears up their marriage certificate.

Nan's death scene, with Judith in attendance, is a truly heart-rending experience, and highly charged with emotion. This scene alone is worth watching the movie for, but there's far more to the plot than that; why on earth aren't modern movies made with the same attention to the story?

This is one of those rare films that works on a number of levels. It's a parody that uses a thorough knowledge of the material it is parodying. It's a buddy movie. It's a period film. It's a mystery.

Michael Caine plays Reggie Kincaid, a hard-drinking, gambling, womanizing actor hired by John Watson (Ben Kingsley) to play the part of his fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes. The problem is, the character of Holmes constantly pushes Watson (the real crime-solver) into the background, and Kincaid is almost impossible for Watson to keep in line.

The humor is so subtle that at times, it's easy to miss. Obviously, the writers have read and reread all the Holmes stories, as references to them are scattered throughout. (If you've never read any of the stories, but have seen the movie, try reading the stories and then watching it again. You'll see just how many references there are.) The movie also has the tremendous boost of the truly heavenly casting of Kingsley and Caine, who play off one another effortlessly and seamlessly. Kingsley shows just what a wonderful comedian he is - why hasn't he been given more comedy roles? Caine looks nothing like the dark-haired, gray-eyed, hawk-faced Holmes of the stories, which only adds to the fun.

The movie also takes a sly look at publicity and how it affects people. Kincaid, as Holmes, is viewed as almost superhuman, so that even his lightest utterance is treated with awe and applause, much to Watson's disgust. Holmes' face is on the cover of Strand magazine (which, as a matter of fact, was the periodical that published Arthur Conan Doyle's stories). Everywhere, people want more of Holmes. To this day, quite a few people out there think that Sherlock Holmes was a real person, and letters still arrive for him at 221b Baker Street.

Watch it. It's well worth the time.

The first time I saw this movie, it was on tape. No, I didn't go to any midnight screenings. And you know what? I loved it anyway! I'm a huge film buff, and even I missed quite a few of the classic film references that are used so liberally throughout the movie. You really have to watch, and listen, to get them. O'Brien's songs are exactly the sort of high-energy, get-down music that is needed to pull off this wildly imaginative spoof of horror/sci-fi/crime film.

It's a hoot to see future Oscar winner Susan Sarandon as an uptight, recently engaged, virginal Janet (with pink dress, of course), having a night with her fiancé, the equally uptight Brad, that neither of them could ever have imagined.

Every now and then, a poll is taken to list the best film performances of all time. This one has never made the list, but for my money, one of the top ten performances in the history of film belongs to the "Sweet Transvestite" himself, Tim Curry. He inhabits the role with such verve and engaging weirdness that you WANT him to win out, even though you know that (among other things) he's a murderer and a cannibal. You even try to tell yourself that hey, what he did wasn't THAT bad.

In every scene, the eye is drawn inexorably to Curry (no mean feat, with Sarandon as costar). Everything he does, whether drooling over his latest creation, using an electric knife to slice a "turkey", or merely raising an eyebrow, is magnetic; it's impossible to look away. He's funny, he's frightening, he's amazingly sexy, and his performance is sheer genius. He makes full use not only of his body, but of his powerful, full-throated voice, a voice of black velvet and thick cream. This is a performance that deserves its own special place in film. Viva Tim Curry!

Nazimova is a real disappointment here. She's supposed to be a magnetic, attractive courtesan, reeling in the men wherever she goes. The most interesting things about her are her wild, over-the-top hairdo (which may have influenced the makeup artist who created Elsa Lanchester's look in "Bride of Frankenstein" more than a decade later), and her emaciated body.

It's Valentino who really makes an impression here, without the eye-rolling theatrics he brought to "The Sheik", made that same year. He's thoughtful, caring, devoted, and devastated when he believes his love has been playing with him. The scene where he breaks down in tears is wonderfully done and very realistic.

Nazimova does much better when she's not flinging her arms around or bending over backward to drain her glass; when she sits down and shuts up, she's actually effective in the role. Valentino easily steals the film from his costar, which may account for the fact that he's not seen in the final, deathbed scenes. Well worth watching.

Hitchcock struck gold again with this dark tale of two strangers - one a famous tennis player, the other a layabout - who meet and swap stories of their lives. Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) is envious of the attractive, popular Guy Haines (Farley Granger), and being abreast of the latest news, Bruno knows that Guy is separated from his wife, but is finding it harder than he expected to divorce her.

This is where things get sticky. Bruno mentions that the two of them could trade murders. Guy could marry Bruno's father, whom Bruno hates; Bruno, for his part, could murder Guy's wife. The perfect murder - "Criss-cross," as Bruno puts it.

Guy laughs off Bruno's suggestion, but not long afterwards, he is informed by the police that his estranged wife, Miriam, has been found strangled. And Guy, who had a loud and even physical fight with her not long before she died, is the suspect. Not only that, but Bruno keeps appearing... and appearing... and appearing... impatient for Guy to hold up his end of the "bargain".

Robert Walker, who would die in a couple of years, gives the best performance of his career as the charming, soft-spoken, psychopathic murderer, easily balancing out Granger's almost-too-good Guy Haines. We don't often see beneath the attractive exterior, but when we do, it's a dark and twisted vision. Bruno is even a literal stain on the landscape, such as in the scene where he is watching Guy from a flight of white steps; he is the only dark object in the frame. In another scene, during a tennis match, the heads of the spectators turn back and forth with the movement of the ball - all except for Bruno, who is watching Guy with a little smile on his face.

Then, of course, there is the unbeatable climax, on board a merry-go-round that is spinning out of control. Pure genius. A must-see.

I love the first film. The second - well, as we all know, we don't have John Belushi with us anymore, which is one strike right there. The filmmakers made the good choices of John Goodman and Joe Morton as backup singers. Had they stopped there, the film would have been much better.

Instead, a kid was thrown into the mix. An orphan, of course. Awwww. Elwood Blues is supposed to act as mentor for the kid (Buster), but forgets to return Buster to the orphanage, getting half the cops in the country and several mean orphanage workers on his tail.

Now, the whole point of the first Blues Brothers film is that these guys can't stay out of trouble. The character of Elwood, with or without Brother Jake, is going to get himself in it up to his eyeballs. The whole story about Elwood being chased for kidnapping is ludicrous. Elwood is going to get in trouble for one thing or another. It didn't have to be kidnapping.

Thus, we end up listening to a prepubescent kid squalling the lines of a damned good song, one that was belted out by three fine singers (Aykroyd, Goodman, and Morton), thus ruining the whole effect. It's no wonder that the Blues Brothers lost the Battle of the Bands - I'd have booed them offstage for bringing a kid into the mix.

There's an cloying, aren't-we-cute gushiness about Buster and his little Blues Brothers outfit that almost gags me. I loved the musical numbers and all the guest artists - and what an impressive group they are! - so I can't understand why the filmmakers would drag down the storyline by introducing a kid, and throwing in all the clichés associated with a small child interacting with adults. The kid is precocious. He's (supposedly, though I see no evidence of it) a good singer. He gives a pep talk at the crucial time. He's easy to bond with. It just doesn't work.

I will watch it for the music and for Elwood's highly inventive method of parallel parking, but I fast-forward through Buster's scenes.

I would give this 10 stars if they had rewritten the female lead, made it a four-hour film, and cast an actress who could actually ACT as the leading lady.

The story here is that Los Angeles is experiencing a series of murders in which the victims (all homeless) are found drained of blood. When another victim is found - also bled dry - shouts of "vampire" are being heard, even though this latest victim doesn't fit the pattern of the other murders.

Enter Nick Knight, an LA cop who works the night shift, and works it alone, successfully hiding the fact that he is a vampire. When working the case, he finds himself saddled with an unwanted partner (John Kapelos) and falling for an archaeologist (Laura Johnson).

I would have liked to see a much longer movie, since the length of this film didn't spend enough time on introducing the characters or showing what is important in their lives. It just throws the action at the viewer. We don't know why Knight suddenly finds himself attracted to this archaeologist, we don't get to see their relationship blossom, and we don't find out enough about his private life.

One of the real mysteries here is, why was Laura Johnson cast? Why was she even allowed near the set? She is supposed to be a strong, resourceful woman, but she behaves like a walking bundle of neuroses. She looks weird, too. Granted, the character does some pretty stupid things, but Johnson makes you think that she's always incompetent and incapable of relating to anyone. It was a rotten casting choice; boos to the person who picked her for the role.

On the plus side, Springfield fits into his role as if it had been written specifically for him. He has too few acting parts, but when he's on screen, you can't take your eyes off him. He has that charisma that is found all too rarely even among actors who make acting their sole source of income. Springfield, as a best-selling musician, certainly doesn't need to act to provide himself with an income; I, however, am VERY glad to see him whenever he does act. He even overcomes Johnson's complete lack of sexual attractiveness, and does it effortlessly; how, I don't know. It's a shame Neil Jordan didn't cast an eye at Springfield for "Interview with the Vampire".

Take a look. It's now available on DVD.

This is the worst movie I've ever seen, and I've seen some pretty abysmal wastes of film.

Slovakian director Jakubisko has made some very good films; unfortunately, this is not one of them. He cast his wife, Deana Horvathova, as the lead, and this was not the least of his mistakes. Horvathova is one of the worst "actresses" in film today; she is completely wrong for the part she plays, and you don't believe a single thing she says or does. The woman simply should not be involved in the film industry in any way.

The story, such as it is, is ridiculous. A village almost wiped out by wolves? People in 18th-century clothing being firebombed by helicopters? Gunfights in the woods? Forget it.

This is a complete waste of time. Don't even let someone pay you to see it.

I loved this film. The acting is wonderful, the script is sharply written, the titles are hilarious, there are plenty of sight gags. A newspaper reporter who fancies himself as a detective becomes involved with a murder/mugging, a missing body, and the perpetrator of the crime, with whom he falls in love. Our hero and heroine aren't exactly your typical characters, and the plot works completely. The titles are in Danish and English, and the English titles go so far as too give the Danish characters typical English names. I saw it at a festival, where it received loud laughs and huge applause. We need this one to be available on DVD!

I wish Alan Parker had directed this film. I know he directed Evita (which I will not see because I loathe Madonna with an undying passion), and he is one hell of a good director. Schumacher overdid it; too many swooping shots, Dutch angles galore, and he crossed the axis. Plus, the film leaves too much unexplained - the horse in the first underground scene, the respective ages of the Phantom and Madame Giry, the ultimate fate of the Phantom, etc. (I was surprised by the criticism of those who hated the unmasking scene. Christine doesn't magically change the Phantom's hair when she yanks off the mask. She removes his wig, too. You can clearly see other wigs on his table as he's readying himself for the big performance, and he adjusts the one he's already wearing.)

That said, it was still exquisite. I was overwhelmed by Gerard Butler's full-blooded, full-throated portrayal of the twisted genius who lives below the opera house and falls deeply in love with one of its singers. I've never seen the stage version, so I didn't know how the story compared to the original Leroux novel; I waited for the death of the Phantom, and was relieved when it didn't come. We never do know what happens to the Phantom, but we know that he's in for a cold, lonely time of it.

I've seen the Lon Chaney version many times, and he and Butler are the quintessential actors for this role - Chaney as the horrifically ugly, murdering Phantom, and Butler as the somewhat deformed, lonely, complex Phantom. I'd like to see the character rewritten so that the Phantom isn't a murderer. This would make Christine's decision less clear - even if she didn't choose Raoul, there's no denying that the Phantom is a man who murders for personal gain, with the exception of the first murder.

It is Butler whom you watch whenever he is on screen; he embodies the character with a rare perfection. I haven't seen anyone throw himself/herself into a role like that in quite some time. As for his singing, I loved it. I felt that, rather than going for perfection, he was trying to put forth the emotion behind the lyrics, and he succeeded magnificently. He sang anger, obsession, madness, loss, anguish, and heartbreak with truly exceptional results. The late Freddie Mercury had a similar quality about him; what a singing duo those two would have made!

As for his acting, he brought to mind the stunning Laurence Olivier; they both have the ability to make you believe, completely and utterly, in the character you are seeing. I couldn't take my eyes off him.

Too handsome, some said. I think his face is perfect. A man of that time who really had a deformity of one side of the face might easily be upset by the fact that the other side is so attractive, and slide into depression. I do agree that the deformity isn't that bad; it looked to me not like a sunburn, but like a bad scalding, say with hot water. This may have been deliberate. A man who would hide himself away due to a deformity that was not too bad is a man who would have trouble expressing his love, which is what happens here.

Butler's performance sets the standard for others to come; he is a talent to be reckoned with.

This film doesn't just deal with the love of the two main characters for each other; it also deals with the love of family and friends. Starting in 1963, when homosexuality was never discussed, and ending in the early 1980s, at around the time AIDS was becoming a well-known disease, the topic of sexual orientation is rarely mentioned due to the stiflingly conservative, narrow-minded milieu in which the characters live. Even toward the end of the film, when homosexuality is accepted in many circles, the small towns in Wyoming and Texas are still, in many ways, stuck in 1963.

Heath Ledger was truly remarkable as Ennis Del Mar, a man who has never learned to show emotion - with the notable exception being anger. He is so locked within himself, afraid to ask for what he wants, afraid even to ask HIMSELF what he wants, that he merely exists; he only comes to life on Brokeback Mountain. Ledger is so good that I truly believed - and was thoroughly exasperated with - his character; he lives in immense fear of the truth being revealed (with some reason, given his memory of the time his father took him to see the battered corpse of an alleged gay man); he can't express love, kindness, or friendship; he can't imagine a world or a life outside the narrow, dusty confines of rural Wyoming.

Gyllenhaal, as Jack Twist, is the one with whom I sympathized. He knows what he wants, and whom he loves (though neither man uses the word "love" toward the other). He admits that he and his wife don't love each other, and he wants to live with Ennis, who refuses to entertain the thought. Unlike Ennis, who doesn't feel much emotion toward his daughters, Jack is very close to his own son. Jack is thwarted by Ennis' inability to communicate, and by the love he feels for Ennis that keeps him near Wyoming. Clearly, Jack would be far better off if he left Ennis and moved to a more liberal environment, but the viewer knows that, just as in real life, Jack will not leave.

The two actors do an amazing job aging approximately twenty years; I'm not speaking of the makeup, but of the body language. Ledger, towards the end of the film, moves with the stiff motions you would expect from a man who'd been a cowboy for his entire adult life. Gyllenhaal's motions are also slower, though his life has been one of greater comfort (thanks to his marriage to a rich woman).

This is a real triumph of film language. Kudos to all involved.

This film, released a year before the 19th Amendment was passed, is a delightfully pro-feminist work. The heroine, Damophilia Illington (Phil for short), is a hard-working, supremely intelligent woman. Her father, a Greek professor, has trained her well in the classics, and Phil can hold her own with any college graduate. When Phil's father dies unexpectedly, the stuffy town banker, who wants to marry Phil, has himself declared her guardian. (How he does this when he is not related to Phil is unclear; when this film was made, however, this may have been a common practice.) Phil promptly dresses as a boy and runs away from home, finding a job at a nearby university (after returning to female garb). She is the assistant to a Greek professor, John Alden, who is still smarting over the recent breakup of his engagement to a duplicitous woman. Alden is now firmly misogynistic, but Phil's intelligence, charm, and wit gradually win him over. Lots of fun to watch.

Spoilers here. The situation is a run-of-the-mill love triangle, in which an attractive young woman, with many suitors, receives proposals from two different men, who are also business partners.

Having made her choice, the young woman marries the business partner who, as it turns out, is addicted to gambling. After a year of marriage and a baby, the husband takes to going out to play cards regularly, leaving his wife at home. The hardworking partner realizes that his irresponsible coworker is embezzling funds from the company to pay his gambling debts; he covers the theft with his own money.

The truly riveting scene in this film is when the irresponsible partner, having lost yet again at cards, calls his wife from the office to inform her that he is going to commit suicide. Henry B. Walthall, as the embezzler, gives a startling and creepy performance in this scene, staring directly into the camera with a grim smile on his face as he plays with the gun. Take a look at this movie.

The ending is a bit far-fetched, but this is a wonderful adaptation of Poe - not just "The Tell-Tale Heart", but other writings as well. Henry B. Walthall is perfect as the obedient, loving, and dominated nephew to his kind but overbearing uncle (Spottiswoode Aiken). There is surprising violence for a film made in 1914, and several twists and turns to the plot. Griffith does a remarkable job of showing the love between the nephew and his girlfriend, Annabelle, and the agony they experience when the uncle expects them to end their relationship, as well as the heartrending stress experienced by the nephew, who wants desperately to please his uncle, who is his only living relative. Well worth watching.