MiloMindbender's reviews

In a movie that is about so little, attention to detail is important and in this one the director completely missed the boat. It opens quite nicely and even though it begins as a typical coming of age/coming out story, the cinematography promises something bigger. However the film never delivers. For starters the central character, Pim, has no personality. He is a complete dud. The director tries to show him interested in drawing, but Pim only does it occasionally and seems to have no passion in it whatsoever. The film also opens with Pim as a much younger kid who is somehow fascinated by his mother's beauty queen crown & sash, both of which he puts in a shoebox (the mother doesn't notice? doesn't care?). It is clear that the director is just accumulating things for Pim to put in his collection box, but with little reason to do so except fulfill a director's plot device at the end of a movie.

Although the actors do an admirable job, the film is just not very well conceived. The beginning has lots of quick cuts, that end abruptly & leave things unexplained, then the film ends with longer shots in which very little happens. Pim's love interest runs off with a girl, and then all of sudden he comes back....no explanation, no development of the characters means the viewer has no explanation for why things happen except that it's just a series of random events a director tried to string together. Beautiful Thing, Ma Vie En Rose, My Beautiful Laundrette....the list of films that explore the themes that this film only touches on is quite long & they do a much better job, so I don't really see any point to this one.

I started watching his specials in chronological order. This one is interesting not because it is funny (which it's not), but because it is interesting to see how far he has come. I always remember him being funny from the get go, but revisiting this one clearly shows that his act has evolved significantly (and for the better). Here he relies more on his mannerisms for humor, while much of the material is pretty banal & doesn't hold up that well. His later career is much more focused on language & politics. It seems that as he has gotten older he has become less concerned with offending people, which means a much funnier act. The only parts of this show that still seem funny are those that are the crudest (ie. farting, bad language...).

As someone who grew up with religion & was gay, the topic of the intersection of the 2 would be potentially interesting. However, I just found this to be a rather banal documentary. It's a rather superficial. Just people stating the same thing over & over... As a budding gay boy, I looked at religion & saw it for what it was...a load of bunk. So, listening to a bunch of people hem & haw about reconciling the differences between the 2 just sounds tiresome & confirmed that renouncing religion (superstition) is the right decision.

If there wasn't so much footage of people bloviating about themselves & more about either the history of treatment of homosexuality in Judaism or more about actual philosophical underpinnings of religion that could still make it relevant in a secular society, this could have been much better...However, as others have mentioned, it's mostly just people kvetching with annoying music in the background. Had Oprah done a show on the topic, it would have been more interesting.

All the dialog in this movie is written as if it were a sermon. Not only is the movie too preachy, but the acting is either too stiff (the children) or too hysterical (Bette Davis, in one of her weaker performances). Another weakness of the movie is that all the dialog revolves around generalities rather than specifics. Fascism and Nazis are bad! Maybe in 1943 this was groundbreaking, but today the simplemindedness of the writing makes this a story of caricatures, rather than a story of real people. The plot of the movie could have survived if this had been filmed as a film noir with unknowns in the leads instead of a melodrama for actors pining to win an Oscar.

The premise of the movie had much going for it, however, despite the novelty of models selling off someone else's furniture to live the high life, this movie has nothing going for it. The characters are cardboard. The dialog is so painfully scripted, it's hard to sit through, and if there were any jokes in the movie, I missed them. Marilyn Monroe's walking into walls because she doesn't want to wear glasses is completely unbelievable & not funny. Grable's stupidity is also too ham-fisted to be believed. Bacall's gold-digging is so forced, it's annoying to listen to. Why anyone would want to sit through this is beyond me.

Well, if kiddie porn could be insipid, this would be it. An older pervert holds a missing girl hostage on his boat & counts off the days til he can legally marry her. Ostensibly to earn money he invites fishers on to the boat to fish, which creates conflict. That actually sounds like it could be a good movie, but "knife in the water" this is not. Think of a music video for John Tesh set in South Korea w/ a virginal 16 yr. old often dressed in white swinging back & forth off the bough of the ship & older men oggling her endlessly, interrupted periodically by scenes of a man old enough to be her grandfather shooting arrows at them because he's jealous. This movie has the emotional complexity of Cinderella and the sub-par acting isn't awful enough to be laughable. The plot is about as unoriginal as it gets and since there's virtually no dialogue, the director has to torture you with excruciatingly insipid new age music for the entire duration of the movie. Getting shot at by real arrows would be a lot less painful than sitting through this one.

Beautiful scenes of Bruges & an above average performance by Farrell can not save this clunker. For starters every line in this movie sounds like it was written for maximum irony or humor. There isn't a single line that sounds like something someone in such a scenario would actually say. Secondly, every plot development is predictable & completely implausible. If it's true that Bruges has no police & that no one in Bruges ever calls the police when crimes are committed, it would seem to be reasonable to conclude that Bruges would be the hub of criminal activity in Europe. But it's not, & people's behavior in this movie is just completely implausible, from beginning to end. The director so obviously drags out the final scene, with what is probably supposed to increase tension for the viewer, but it's really just tiresome. How many times does he have to shoot the Farrel character & not do it? How many times does the Farrel character have to get away but just stand there to what for him to catch up? It has all the subtlety of a film student's final project. Finally, Ralph Fiennes can't act & he's particularly atrocious in this thing. I'm surprised by all the praise heaped on this, rather derivative "hip" gangster flick, but then again the quality here on IMDb really has taken a nosedive over the past decade. If flashy, hip gangsta films are your thing then maybe you'll enjoy this, but if you really want to laugh "lock stock & 2 smoking barrels" has many more laughs & feels more natural than this thing (in spite of its more implausible scenarios).

I was a big fan of Cronenberg, but it's clear from this (& Crash) that he should stick to sci-fi. The premise for the movie could have been very interesting, but its actual implementation is universally awful. Nothing about this movie is credible. The dialogue is as contrived as it gets, Not of the characters are remotely believable, and the individual scenarios just don't add up. If the sheriff found out about the ties between organized crime, why didn't he ever contact the FBI when the family was being stalked? Why did everyone always neglect to call for help when they had ample time & opportunity to do so? Why did all the exchanges with the mob types go unnoticed by people in public places (the mall, the diner, etc.)? Why didn't the son ever comment to anyone about the harassment at school & when it was obvious to others at school why didn't fellow school mates say anything? Why does every scene have to be a big blow-out, ultra dramatic sequence? Why does the wife heave violently? Why does she hit him, then consent to have sex, then slap him and run up the steps? There is nothing in this script that is actually true to how people actually behave. From all the rave reviews, it looks like people have been so inundated with CGI & cartoon violence, that they think a manga with real people is somehow deep & involving. If you really want to see a movie that handles, sex & violence in a daring, but credible way, the French do a much better job. Check out Irreversible or Humanite instead.

I rented this because of all the rave reviews, though I must say that after Goodfellas, I don't expect much from Scorsese. While it is watchable & not awful, there are at least 100 films in my queue that would have been more worthwhile. Almost every scene in this movie plays out like a rehash from another movie, so I was surprised to see that this was supposed to be a remake of Infernal Affairs (which I thought was quite good). Nothing in this movie rings true (a psychologist that dispenses drugs to patients after they've asked for them, a chief of police who hires a rat to find out who the rat in the department is, a graduate of the police academy who works his way up to the top in less than a year....the implausibilities are endless). The dialog & plot are quite contrived, the acting is always over the top (everyone has to use expletives all the time). The movie just spends too much time trying to be clever and not enough time developing any believable characters or plot. It's a sad commentary on the poor taste of the masses that a film this bad can get such a high rating.

The story of the connection between the privately held corporations that have profited from the war in Iraq without oversight and the Bush administration has been revealed in bits and pieces over the years. This film attempts to connect the links and highlight the impact that it has had on the lives of those most affected. It is admirable that a first time director would tackle such a feat, but it could be done more successfully. Better editing and a little more research into the issues could have made this film stronger. There are a few things that I find annoying in the film. First is the sloppy use of Powerpoint like graphs & tables. The directors show names of companies and individuals in boxes and lines in between them, but never really backs this up with any explanation of what the boxes & lines represent, much less actually proving that links between the many people mentioned actually exist. The directors also make heavy-handed use of dramatic music, which usually gets on my nerves. If the story is dramatic (which it is) and effectively presented (this could have been done with better editing), such hyperbole isn't needed. A lot of the information has been previously reported in The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor & Democracy Now, what this documentary adds is the personal toll that the privatization of war has had on those who fight it. Many of the interviews are very good, though a bit repetitive in their message. A clearer structure to the film, either by a timeline or using an omniscient narrator, would have made it stronger. As it stands the film is repetitive & I found myself (someone already familiar with the story) nodding off at about the half way point. Some talking heads (NGO representatives, academics, etc.) would have also strengthened this film and give it a bit more analytical edge to it.

Well, I guess I'm in the minority on this one. Of the 6 films in the WB Gangster box set (which I picked up because I liked the noir box so much), I got to this one last. Admittedly, I'm not much of a gangster film fan. To me, they're a bit more one-dimensional than the noir films. And, despite some very interesting camera work & a few notable scenes (the best being the shoot out in the rain, Tommy coming home from the hospital & the visit to the tailors), I found this one to be the weakest of the 6 in the box set. What ruined the movie for me was both the acting & the rather one-dimensional plot. After watching the others in the set, the tough momma's boy theme became quite a cliché by this point. I thought White Heat did a much better job. The story was better developed & the acting a bit more professional. In this one, none of the other actors were very good (& I found Harlow & the brother to be particularly annoying) & I didn't think Cagney was all that great either.

This came second on a double bill. I tried to sit through it, but after watching "A Page of Madness" this just didn't measure up. The film falls between the silent & sound eras. It tells the tale of a male servant who is taken in by a geisha and given the support to attend school as his mother would have wished. The opening scene is very interesting & I don't want to spoil it. However, while the movie may have been one of the first (if not, then the first) Japanese sound film, it's experimental nature really ruins it for modern viewers. The film uses a narrator to relay what the dialogue or thoughts of the actors would be. To add to that, the film also uses intertitles with the dialogue (and I saw it with the addition of English subtitles, for both the narration & the intertitles). For a good part of the beginning, there is my screen time devoted to intertitles than to the actual action of the film. All this narration/explanation is really overkill for a contemporary audience. Ironically, I found it less understandable (perhaps because this overkill was putting me to sleep) despite it being more literal, than "Page of Madness" which was completely silent and had no intertitles. For that reason, I consider it more of a curio for film historians because of the way it introduced sound, but otherwise not one of the more interesting of the early years of film.

I went to this because of all the rave reviews about the acting, particularly Penelope Cruz's. And while it's competent in the scenes she's in, overall it's not believable. The premise that a poor woman would have an affair with a married wealthy man in as selfless a way as this film portrays in this day & age is about as far fetched as it gets. Sex almost always occurs in spontaneous fits, and despite a few comments on one's childhood, very little communication occurs between the characters outside of sex, so much so, that I always ended up dreading the next (most likely sex) scene. Never has sex in a film been such a turnoff (well except for Irreversible, but that of course was intentional). The film seemed to lack a purpose & any emotional or intellectual engagement. The music was loud (at least in the theater I saw it) & extremely annoying. Songs break out in several odd places & end up being quite distracting, which is probably what the director had intended, as there's not much interesting going on otherwise.

I saw this in one of the Spike & Mike festivals years ago & would say that this is probably my all time fave short. Very simple & short, but quite devastating. I have been trying to track this down on DVD..... The story of the creator is tragic, had he lived longer, I'm sure he would have rocked the animation world. The story is the classic, oft told tale of a kid afraid to go to bed because of what might lurk under his bed. It is told (if i remember correctly) without proper dialogue (I think there are mutterings by the characters, but not of an intelligible language). I assumed from the dark tone & detailed sets & figures that this one came from Eastern Europe, but was quite surprised to find it was not the case. Think Quay brothers, but with real characters in clay & in color.

Most of the criticism directed towards the leads in this film is misguided. Besides the visual feast of the sets & some of the cinematography, the leads (Garr & Forrest) are the strongest thing in this film. I find them quite appropriate for the characters they play & they do a very good job at it too. Terri Garr is particularly good. The problem isn't the choice of lead actors or their performance, it's the script, the plot (or lack of one) and the music. As with most American films, there is no substance to the film. The film simply documents a couple's falling out & getting back together again, but never delves into the reasons why. The film also dwells on this to the exclusion of everything else (we do get a little bit of Terri & Raul at work, but only to set up their affair). Even Madame Butterfly has more plot & character development than this. The other thing that mars this production is the music. I love Tom Waits' music & some of the songs here are good, however the music is used (ad nauseum) to make up for the lack of plot. Since it delves into the dinner jazz/new age category, it gets very annoying, especially when Crystal Gayle accompanies. Surely they could have picked a better singer (i.e., one whose voice isn't so cloying) than her to accompany him. The supporting characters put in weak performances. Kinski's vocals are bad & sync poorly to her mouth in the singing part, though she (& Terri) look to be competent dancers (though the actual choreography itself is unexceptional).

I saw the poster for this & thought it was just another period piece, but then I saw it was by Mike Leigh & had to go see it. The film is dark, both in lighting (most scenes are indoors) & in tone, without being overwhelmingly depressing. The cinematography, set design & lighting all captured late 40's/early 50's era quite well, also kudos to sets & props department for this. The film's story line delves into the details of the issue at hand to such great detail, that it is very obvious that Mike Leigh did some good research into the subject matter before it was written, a quality lacking in most current historical films. The film's characters were detailed well & more than competently conveyed by the actors that portrayed them, with 2 exceptions. Both Vera's childhood friend who referred abortions to her & the brother's wife were rather one-dimensional stiff boards/uptight, which played OK for comedic effect in a few scenes, but also detracted from the cineme verite quality of the other performances. So, while I think this was probably better than any Hollywood film this year (ok, I haven't gone to any, so I can't be quite certain), I would not say that it is Leigh's best. The editing was also a bit uneven. A few scenes felt either contrived (the brother & wife talking at home after Vera was arrested) or out of place (the final scene with the family at dinner). But, I would still recommend it. 8/10

Growing up in the 1980s, my sister & I would watch this show religiously. We used to roll on the floor & laugh so hard that it hurt. This was the funniest show on TV in its day. Our mother would often reprimand us for making fun of the program (and equating our reactions with sacrilege). However, mom would soon find out (thanks to us) that her mother had been sending PTL $$$ (On one visit, I noticed that she had the "Rice Patty" dolls, given to donors of over $100), Of course, our grandmother was a bit dippy so it really didn't surprise me.

The Bakkers really knew how to get Americans to cough up their $$$, and with such cheezy entertainment too. If only the Jerry Lewis Telathon was as unintentionally entertaining. Of course, Tammy stole the show with her crying & her makeup. But sometimes, the conversation would even trump these histrionics. My favorite was Tammy recounting a Tennis match with their neighbors (who drank & swore) & said that he told her: "Tammy, I may swear a lot & I know you pray a lot, but each of us knows that we don't mean what we say." Everyone reacted shocked to the comment, making it quite ironic & funny to see....and of course every time the money started dropping off, they'd wheel out a cripple in a wheel chair. It was quite transparent to my sister & I (early teens) at the time that they were milking people for their money. We even told our grandmother that it was a scam, but she wouldn't listen... until the scandals hit. Then she refused to acknowledge that she ever gave them any money.

It would be nice if someone could track down the tapes of the show & release them on DVD, or at least a "Best of....". I know I'd buy a copy.

screams a newspaper header pictured in this documentary. Finally, the stupid people of the world have their own philosopher & this film covers her life's work & story very well.

Bereft of any intellectual discussions, this film repeats Rand's "philosophy" over & over: individualism over collectivism, rationality above all, humans must heed their inner voice....repeated over & over with exceptionally annoying background music. It's quite obvious that this "documentary" is really a thinly veiled marketing video produced by the Ayn Rand Institute. All of those who are interviewed are her friends. The film never engages critically or substantively ( or is there no substance to "objectivism"?) with philosophical, economic, or political ideas. Hence, the contradictions that crop up (to a person with the capacity to think, anyway) are glaring: Ayn is on the hunt for the "ultimate man" with her fiction yet marries an unassuming dolt, Ayn is preaching individualism from a rarerified life inside a Frank Lloyd Wright castle while the collective masses outside protest segregation...

The film does cover a few details of her life in order to portray her as the classic immigrant to the US who struggles against all odds to become sucessful. But the filmmakers really have to go overboard to do this, hence the ad nauseum repetition. They repeat over & over that she was fascinated with the New York skyline in Hollywood movies & that this shaped her philosophy & novels. But, she had to walk to work to save up enough money so to see a movie (420 movies in 2 years that is).....of course, lots of others emigrated to the US on dreams too & at least they don't have an over-inflated sense of self. So what makes Ayn so special? That she's unapollagetically an atheist? Emma Goldman is more interesting. That she didn't bake cookies....? A lot of housewives have contributed more to

society than this woman. That her books helped many conservatives and libertarians let go of any social conscious they may have had & helped them succeed in business without even trying? Her most popular books were fiction & not self-help or how-to books. That she set up the Ayn Rand institute, an hommage to herself, to keep the cult going. Scientology, Focus on The Family, and UFO abductees are just as successful at this...

The only conclusion I can come to after seeing this film is that Ayn Rand became successful because she is the truest mirror for Americans to bask in their own reflection:

1. act selfishly, it is your true nature 2. self-promotion makes your life's work into a work of art, and the more money you die with, the more staying power your life's work will have. 3. the more you repeat things, the truer they become 4. all of your intellectual capacity, moral guidance & reflection can be summed up on a cocktail napkin.....even if you've had 3 too many martinis.

oh, and repeat after me: "There's no place like home, there's no place like home...."

This movie reminded me of why I steer clear of gay films. It is the worst movie I've seen in the past year. The acting is awful. The writing is terrible. The scenarios are not believable. I got tired of watching the dvd after an hour & will get rid of it on ebay some time soon. The dvd features an interview with David Leavitt, who praises the film. I've certainly lost respect for him. If I had written a book on which this schmalzfest was based, I'd be thankful that they used a different title & steer clear of admitting any involvement. 1/10

I went to this because Adaptation was one of my favorites of 2002 & it's rare that a US movie engages me. If you go to Hollywood movies all the time, then you might find the way in which this story is told to be engaging enough to distract you from the film's lack of content. But if you're a more seasoned film buff, you'll probably find this one-trick wonder to be a bit of a bore. The film falls apart under the weight of its own slickness. About 1/2 way through the film, when the film became nothing more than Carey trying to evade the "erasers" in his mind, I was paying more attention to how bad the acting was. Mark Ruffalo & Kirsten Dunst are particularly bad. So if there's nothing but Hollywood fare available you might check it out, but otherwise save your $$$.

I ran out to see this in the theater since Egoyan was one of my favorite director's (that was until I saw this movie), with The Adjuster & Exotica my favorites. His talent has been on the decline since Exotica, perhaps because he can't make a film without his wife in it (Felicia's Journey being the exception). In this film she is awful, but so are most of the actors. This film was the biggest disappointment in 2002 for me. This is a message film & the message is: Turks committed genocide agaist Armenians & genocide is bad. Otherwise, the film did nothing to impart knowledge of the historical events that are supposed to be the basis for the film. The acting is universally wooden. The storyline was poorly written. A completely lifeless film. I'm surprised by all the 10's it has received. 3/10

I always waited anxiously for the weekend when my parents would go out with friends & I would stay up late & watch tv. We were lucky to have very good cable (despite the fewer # of channels available then today), getting the indie stations from NJ, NYC & Philly on top of the cable channels. My parents probably would have been horrified to discover what I was watching (Monty Python, The Kenny Everett Video Show, Benny Hill, SNL and eventually the 1st few years of the USA Network's Late night programming before it devolved into Gilbert Godfrey & cheezy movies).

SCTV was always got top bill, the others were usually a mixed bag as far as quality was concerned (at least to a pre-teenager). As time went on, I was disappointed that SCTV faded in SNL's shadow, since SCTV was far superior. I was also disappointed to see the men of the show (John Candy, Martin Short...) go on to bigger careers in film, but the women, who had much stronger characters, only popped up on an occassional tv show.

My all-time favorite skit had to have been Catherine O'hara playing Brooke Shields on The Farm Report doing her rendition of Devo's "Whip It"....I haven't ever laughed so hard at a single tv joke since (Jim & Tammy Bakker weren't intentionally funny, so they don't count). Of course there was also the skit w/ the 2 women doing a women's tv chat show while seated on pillows arranged on a sound stage, and of course 3D Horror Theater...I hope the complete series makes it to DVD.