spidermandel

Sorry to say I believed the hype and blew 8 bucks. I shoulda gone to the cinema next door and seen THis Is It with Jacko. Paranormal Activity was an absolute piece of crap... predictable, slow, slow, and slow. The scariest thing about this movie is that so many people have bought the hype and gone to see it. I've seen student films that are much better. My fault - I'm too trusting in reviews. What are these people smoking? I've seen scary movies before, all the way from the original The Blob to Blair Witch. Scary should be an emotional reaction, a complete involvement with the characters, the story, the premise. And every movie needs a story and a premise, not a one line summary like "this couple is in a house, the guy's a geek about video cameras, and his girl friend is possessed." Out of the 90 minutes, 80 of it seemed like they were sleeping, as I was. There should be federal guidelines on how much you can fool the public, kind of like the financial meltdown when rules were broken and ignored. If that were the case, everyone who worked on the publicity for this film would be doing time.

A delightful movie about the many aspects of love. The director knows comedy, doesn't talk down to his audience, and together with the screenwriter, delivers some insightful and hilarious moments. I found the movie dragged, or rather annoyed, only during one short stretch. But that was more than offset by the incredibly funny and talented Carlo Vendone as the physician in the final segment. I, and the entire full house of the audience at the St. Louis International Film Festival, was with this film every entertaining step of the way. The entire cast delivers believable performances, in a film that moves at a happy, involving pace. Laughter is contagious... see it with a group.

I saw "The Libertine" last night and didn't realize until today, reading many of the reviews here, that it was released in 2004. I see a lot of movies... 50 or 60 a year. I would put "The Libertine" somewhere near the bottom of that list. In roughly the same position as I put "Alexander" last year: fascinating character given a bum deal in a movie. I like Depp, I like Samantha Morton and Malkovich. What I don't like is a movie with a main character that I don't connect with, that I absolutely don't care what happens to him. Yes, the photography and editing were rough, but I've enjoyed other movies with that approach. This was just plain ugly. I could almost smell the entire cast. After the movie, I said to my wife, "I wonder why they bothered to make that." I enjoyed reading much of the praise lavished on the movie in this web site. Wish I could have gone along on that ride. For now, I'll just think about what I could have done with those two long hours I lost last night.