10 reviews
S.F. Brownrigg is surely one of the most overlooked directors in the slasher genre with Basement being his masterwork. The plot concerns a young nurse (Playboy covergirl Rosie Holotik) who takes a job at a secluded mental hospital. Upon her arrival, it transpires that her employer has been killed by one of the patients and the place is now being run by strict disciplinarian, Dr Masters. Make no mistake, this is a horribly under-staffed operation. The lunatics truly are taking over the asylum and you really have to feel for the young nurse. Tough first gig. The basement figures only very briefly and towards the end of film. It is, in fact, the safest place in the house because the rest of the place is pure madness. I can only assume that Don't Look in the Basement was perhaps an afterthought as a title, possibly forced on the film by the backers to make it sound more scary as the title card appears to have been dropped in arbitrarily and does not match the other titles. Scenes worth watching for are the Judge attacking the doctor with an axe and a broken rubber knife in the final bloodbath. Forget One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. This is the stuff.
Highly entertaining but devoid of substance. Nothing wrong with that, I thoroughly enjoyed it while watching but had little to say about it afterwards. I'll say this about Tarantino - he's a better action director than I would have thought and he manages to keep a paper thin story going very well. I'm not sure if I'm suffieciently intrigued to watch part II though.
Many of the comments here draw comparisons with Leone's other westerns, namely the misnomered Dollars trilogy (the only common thread was Eastwood as lead). Once Upon A Time is actually a continuation of Leone's exploration of the American frontier. It's also his most hopeful film leaving the audience with the message that the time for gunslinging is over and where nation building must begin - Cardinale delivering water to the railway workers. The beauty of the film is in the conflicted way it tells us this; like Peckinpah's Wild Bunch, Frank and Harmonica know their time is up and there's a huge mutual respect between them in their final duel. I don't think I've ever seen a duel like it: absolutely supercharged with emotion. I do agree that the film could have used a cut here or there but I'm not sure where as there isn't a scene I can think of that doesn't push the story forward. I'd love to have seen Eastwood doing Harmonica but Bronson fills in well. As for Fonda, one of the best pieces of counter-casting I've seen. Pure cinema.
At times excruciatingly funny yet oddly unsatisfying. As with Rushmore, I found the overly quirky characters too bizarre to relate to and the director tends to skim superficially over each of them, leaving you wanting more. Hackman, Huston and Owen Wilson are superb but the supporting cast felt rather lightweight although that's in part down to the script. It's certainly one of the better comedies I've seen in the last few years but doesn't hold a candle to an in-form Woody Allen, an auteur who treads similar territory.
I've waited 20 years for this and it did not disappoint. Peter Jackson and his team have re-created Middle Earth beautifully - the characters and locations are almost exactly as I had visualized them. The performances are nicely restrained, the effects are stunning yet unobtrusive and the action set pieces are comparable to Spielberg or Peckinpah. The scene where Arwen and Frodo are pursued by the Riders will stick in my mind forever. The 3 hour running time flies by and I was left with an aching desire to see parts II and III. A masterpiece of fantasy cinema.
I rented The Dish along with Requiem For A Dream, which I'd been looking forward to for some time. The Dish succeeded on almost every level that Requiem failed, at least for me. The most important is an investment in your characters - after an hour of Requiem, I lost all interest in the characters and cared not a jot how things would turn out. Conversely, with The Dish, I started out knowing nothing about these characters and by the end I'm cheering along with them, feeling their sense of pride on this momentous occasion. You actually feel a part of the movie. Beautifully observed and typically Australian with it's understated, self-deprecating sense of comedy. And not one bad guy.
This movie is like candyfloss - the more you eat the less satisfying it gets until you just want to dump it in the bin and wash your hands. It looks great but there's nothing underneath - lame script, tired performances and leaden direction make this a bargain basement version of The Silence of the Lambs. I kept waiting for Michael Stipe to run in and do a silly dance. 2/10
A poor vehicle for Mel Gibson's limited comedic talent. Overlong and suffering from unfocused direction, Gibson himself is the only vaguely interesting character in a movie that insults the very people who will make it a success - i.e. women. It's hard to believe it was directed by a woman when you look at the awful stereotypes presented here - Tomei's ditzy wannabe actress incomplete without a man/sex, Helen Hunt's career girl "I have to be a bitch to be a success but all I really want is love", a suicidal office girl and 2 empty-headed assistants. Gibson's daughter is the only one who attains any level of credibility. Also notable among the stereotypes are the Hispanic woman and the black woman who don't get to work in the ad agency but rather are given the choice roles of Gibson's maid and Gibson's doorperson respectively. Essentially this is a kind of remake of Groundhog Day (Unpleasant man is given special gift which at first he exploits and then learns from) but with none of the laughs or chemistry that Bill Murray and Andie McDowall brought to the screen. 3/10.
The greatest animated TV show ever. Bob Godfrey's wigglevision animation, manic theme music and Richard Briers' narration made this the best reason to sit in front of the telly on a weekday afternoon. Roobarb is a placid green dog who invents things in his shed while Custard is the annoying pink cat that hangs around. Leeds Utd, bottles of Tizer and Roobarb and Custard are what made wearing brown corduroy flares tolerable in the 70's.