Mikelito's reviews

It's embarrassing to think that stories like this are mistaken for SciFi.

As for the "Sci" it only helps to drag a long a family story into - probably (who knows) - eternity and back.

Whenever the story gets stuck some miracle "scientific fact" appears to help it move along.

By the way, that Mathew M. actor ... who can he convince of being in a position to be chosen for all the stuff that role is capable of....

Of course you get the cliché robot and the cliché computer (à la HAL) and all the rest of it.

I guess Zimmer is a good composer but this constant barrage of holier- than-holy church music only now and then interspersed with kitsch is only letting you know how you should be on your knees in tears regarding this "universal story of love and family" ... I'm guessing this has to be one of the slogans to market this soap opera over x amount of galaxies ... or one ... who cares.

A few stars for the visual stuff but the content ... oh the content ...

if sam raimi got the job of directing, at least this would have been entertaining.

let's see: a really badly done movie - it looks like made for TV. horrible choice of actors. gaping mouths galore. looks like they couldn't even get the most often used clichés right. no scene really had some discernible suspense. camera is awful. goldblum is awful, the slowest actor on earth in an action movie ... why ... ?

the lighting alone is horrible as it changes even within scenes, amateurish stuff, was mister spielberg really present here?

there is no thread here, everything jumps from one mess to the next incoherent mess.

this review is almost as incoherent as this movie.

I've yet to see an entire movie with A. Jolie because like Tom Cruise she makes me turn off or switch the channel after only minutes...

This time I decided to keep watching for some reason. Maybe because these 2 people (Banderas & Jolie) are regarded as sex symbols by the majority of their respective opposite sex.

Well, you can't help but compare these leading actors to the ones that have done movies like this before: Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Gregory Peck ...

Now whatever you think about those iconic actors, they had charisma and they could - in their own way - convey even the cheesiest of cliché feelings that some writers put words to and some directors put movements to.

Well to cut things short: Banderas is a piece of wood, Jolie cannot act at all.

Look at any scene that Jolie is in: She doesn't do anything with it! Just like S. Johansson and the whole slew of new and (sort of) young actors. One could argue that if you have gargantuan rubber boats lining your mouth your expression is severely hampered to the point of rendering you an expressionless freak of nature. But we are not talking about the Elephant Man here...

James Lipton somehow finds it necessary to interview people like Jolie about the "art of acting". Evidently it's not the mastery of the acting profession that influences his choices but some other ghastly satanic perversion. Or maybe just marketing and money. Hard to tell any difference...

Oh there are so many horrific travesties in this movie:

When Jolie's character acts coy and seduces Bandera's character in the beginning - oh the humanity! There is nothing sublime, there is no honor, ... there is just hammy high school acting. Just the natural instincts and flirting of a professional ... whatever ... but no acting I could detect.

Or when the man beats up the woman - that scene is horrible! She actually defends herself, there's nothing theatrically exaggerated about it. Like a white trash couple fighting in the street and you are sick watching it...

The story is horrible and implausible and not worth mentioning. Maybe this movie was just an excuse for a couple of stale love scenes. They couldn't even get those right...! Oh why don't they cut to a fireplace anymore and spare us the misery...?

But then the very supposed sexuality of both leading actors is just like how they behave in front of the camera (some actually call it "acting") - S.T.E.R.I.L.E.

What a world...

When Hollywood is trying to grasp what an "intelligent person" is like, they fail so miserably, finding it hard putting words in the mouth of the purported "genius".

Right, any genius walks around trying to rub in his superiority at every instance. Sure, they hang out in bars and pick fights – it's not like they are (generalizing wildly) autistic nerds who never have a tan.

Plus, if you are a genius you know all about Math and History and Politics and of course you're constantly up to date with current events and a thorough analysis of them. Coz these things, like, all go together n stuff, y'know?

Plus, you walk around with a smirk all the time. You are just a smug son of a you-know-what, that's how it is, y'all.

And of course you smoke, like someone who never smoked before, but you smoke coz it's like cool n stuff, y'know. And you're different. That is understood.

And of course you can fight – you're a bully. A bully who finds time to study 10.000 books whenever he doesn't lift weights. And whenever he doesn't smoke or drink beer because he follows a strict health regimen.

And you date a 30-something college student – Minnie Driver. Well, I won't even comment Matt Damon. Team America has hit the nail on the head already.

This movie is a daydream of a Beavis & Butthead type student (in other words 95% of them): "Yeah, that's what I would be like if I was a genius." But stupid people and stupid authors in this case cannot imagine the lives of geniuses.

When you just take a "family comedy" and invert all the clichés you still don't have something worth watching.

I'm amazed at how quickly some movies manage to be annoying: You know you're going to not like a movie when in the first scene a hollow-brained Kate Holmes mouths a 2-sentence idiotic summary of Dostojewski's "Brothers Karamasov".

Every single scene, every sentence tries its hardest to be "different" - this is more disturbing than the movie trying to be disturbing...

This is uninvolving and unbelievable from the first moment with the actors, directors and writers being unable to create something. Maybe it's just Ang Lee who evidently doesn't understand Western life. I guess the movie would work if it was set in Japan or South Korea.

It looks like a patchwork of scenes which themselves could be moderately funny mini movies.

I don't find the cast terrific, it is exactly the type of people you expect in such an attempt at "Darkness", "Europeanism", "Cynicism" or whatever it wants to be.

This is probably for Americans who'd love to watch European movies from the 70s but don't want to read subtitles. It's really weird when Hollywood picks up something from the past and tries to re-do it.

Uh...one final word on "politics". The Nixon era is repeatedly cited through inept means such as TV clips. Why...? So this is set in the early Seventies! Wow! Yeah! This makes the movie all the more good and credible and plausible! Right? Right...

Check Beatty's "Shampoo" for useless references to the Nixon era that are supposed to give the movie an edge that it doesn't have.

It's wishy washy just like all the stories in this movie.

Truffaut originally wanted to do this movie, but died. He seems to have left behind notes. What might they have contained, I wonder: "Alright, there's this young chick, and she's all horny and a juvenile delinquent and she just does what she wants. And we'll have lots of excuses for boobs and lingerie." Hat's off to the genius.

This starts out pretty entertaining. A look into a girls life in France in the late 40s.

But lo and behold, who would have guessed it: after 20 minutes it turns into the number 1 passion of French men: a Lolita fantasy.

Yes, an insecure grown man who is very supposedly married hooks up with a teenage girl... In fact as we all know from decades of French movies this is yet another French man's wet dream brought to the screen. So was Truffaut no different? Too bad.

The girl in this movie seduces the man and that makes it credible, plausible and "proof" that this is not Pedophilia. Well at least we believe it, won't we?

Unfortunately it is just that: Pedophilia. There are lots of gratuitous scenes of the girl wearing lingerie etc. Of course those scenes had to be there. Otherwise we couldn't possibly have followed this deep and meaningful story... Because you know she just happens to be a kleptomaniac and she just happens to love lingerie. So she has to try on what she steals doesn't she? She could have stolen tractors or food but who wants to see her eating a baguette on a tractor, right? Right.

Later on they check into 2 separate hotel rooms as father and daughter. But grandma concierge knows everything ... she doesn't really approve but hey, this is France, he's 40 and she's 16, no problem!

I guess everything is fine - Charlotte Gainsbourg was SEVENteen at the time. Quite old actually to be in a French movie about defloration.

If you are not convinced by the noble intentions now, there are women's prison scenes and cat fights in the movie as well.

So you see, this is really just an innocent and totally non-sexist totally non-speculative totally non-exploitative look into a young girls life.

I love these 70s movies! Especially these SciFi B-movies: You never know which awful thing is going to happen next. Awful - that is quality-wise, not horror-wise.

As far as direction is concerned: Frequently in this movie around 4 people line up without really anything special to say - standing side by side not knowing what to do with their arms!

Except for the policeman - he doesn't have that problem because he has super-glued his thumbs to his belt. I was surprised he didn't also drive that way...

The hero is primarily a guy who can't keep his shirt on...

Bad movies show you that there is actually WORK that goes into making a movie look somewhat credible: From the positioning of people to the positioning of their arms - it's a bleeding art form... Movies don't just "happen" on the basis of some idea.

Hey, and the fish-lipped guy with that terrific folk-song. He demonstrates that it's actually TALENT that goes into making a good song. By exhibiting the opposite of that.

The horror and action is reduced to around 30 seconds if you add everything up. But that is not the reason why you watch this. Unless you are 4 years old.

I wanted to like this, and the best sketches in it are really funny and you can watch them over and over again.

But ... unfortunately the humour is mostly very very low-brow and downright toiletary. The best example is the joke they ended the first season on: It's about a "Butthead" family which has buttcheeks on top of their heads. Hilarity ensues... This embarrassingly unimaginative setup is followed by every single butt joke that you can think of yourself.

Poor Tommy Davidson is a funny guy, but his commentary on that last Season 1 episode on the DVD set is a bit on the rosy-coloured glasses side. He calls that Butthead joke setup "risqué" - well, "infantile" would be another word that comes to mind.

I'm not really impressed when you only "push the censors" by using foul language. Politically and socially this show was pretty tame.

Often there is no real joke but just an over-use of one-liners pushed down your throat like "Homey don't play that" etc.

Well, again, there is good stuff in there and there is a huge advantage compared to "Saturday Night Live": the sketches are shorter and to the point.

So this is a shoe-string budget ($ 60.000) movie... It happens to be a brilliant movie for people who have kept alive the child in themselves.

John Landis has a talent for making comedies.

There are a number of fantastically executed gags in this one.

Very deadpan.

The body language of "Schlock" is absolutely hilarious.

If you're only interested in today's slick, over-produced comedies as well as romantic movies in which Hanks/Stiller/Grant get their girl or if you need CGI, car chases, shootouts and explosions to entertain yourself then stay away from this.

The bottom line and "theory" of this movie is symbolized in all the excerpts from "Blob" with a certain Steve McQueen. Here is a guy who evidently took himself serious and played some tough guys in his days.

YET: Steve McQueen was in "Blob"...

CONCLUSION: Don't take yourself so serious, people. Whether it's comedy or drama or action: it doesn't take 200 mio. dollars to be entertained.

Four stars? - give me a break!

I was thrilled and amused when I saw this as a kid - so many unconventional scenes, so many people who don't behave ...

Alright this is not that entertaining for people of today who have lost any attention span. And it's not as brilliantly made as "Where's Poppa?", also written by Robert Klane, but it does have its moments, i.e. most scenes that Arkin and Gardenia are in. Reiner is pretty inept here as usual, though. Kay Medford is very good as a Mother out of touch with reality. A good cast in general.

Some scenes lack a better execution but on the whole this is an original idea that has several subplots which are nicely tied up. Greed, ineptness, dysfunctional families, madness and irritation manifest themselves in many different ways.

Most locations are pretty "awful" by today's viewing habits but that is the exact charm of this movie as opposed to all the slick and sterile over-produced forgettable comedies of today. The settings make this movie look "real" and might tend to make people uneasy about the story because it seems people don't really get their way - no matter how they try. That makes for good comedy because this is how life is when you constantly overreach: You make a fool of yourself.

The main problem with this seems to be that the ideas are funny but better production and direction would not have hurt. This could very well be remade but I doubt people today want to see anyone on the screen who is over 40 years old... And that is pathetic.

Why does this piece of film have so many raving reviews?

This is amateurish, unfunny and annoying.

The only memorable thing here is the corny title song.

The production values are low and the "comedic" (if you want to call them that) ideas are weak, they seem like leftovers of leftovers from SNL that even they would not dare to have put on the screen.

I'm beginning to thoroughly mistrust IMDb ratings.

This is light years away from Kentucky Fried Movie - not even in the same Galaxy.

It's not even possible to write 10 lines about it.

OK, another good thing: ugly street scenes and ugly people - something one doesn't get to see a lot in todays TV and Movies.

Being a fan of movies like "Fire Sale", "Where's Poppa", "Airplane" I saw this because it was mentioned favorably in the context of real comedies and satires like the aforementioned. Well, WRONG CONCLUSION!

Not only is this not funny, it makes you angry because it isn't bad in a schlocky, likable way but in a really bad way. It's bad-bad. The script does not contain a single funny line which is rather in the way when you're trying to entertain your audience with humour.

Adam Arkin's speech impediment is probably the single most annoying thing in this movie. Still this cruelty of nature doesn't prevent him from being smug throughout the movie and he has a hard time not looking into the camera. This amateur without charisma fits in nicely with the constant continuity errors and bumbling along of the story - if you can find one.

Ed McMahon - I had to think of Jay Leno, another late night talk show person, who always refuses to call himself an actor. Well, I've seen a few Leno movies and he's Laurence Olivier compared to McMahon.

Kenneth Mars is good, though. In the few lines that he's given. I'm not easily frightened by bad comedies so I kept watching and looking for all the quasi-jokes every 5 minutes or so.

The movie actually becomes sort of a comedy as soon as Alan Arkin takes over - he literally does: Starting 75 minutes into the movie he's in every scene. But it's too little, too late.

When movies try to fool you into believing their lack of professionalism is the reason you're supposed to like them because they have the right intentions they remind me of pupils that haven't prepared for an exam. In those cases you have to remain strict and the grade has to be an 'F'. (But please don't assume I'm a teacher. That is a profession with a respectability somewhere between politician and child molester).

If you actually look for a likable schlocky horror/scifi movie that is fun to watch and does contain jokes try "Man with the Screaming Brain" by Bruce Campbell. Or watch Sunshine/Core if you prefer modern loud shallow SciFi Schlock. Those are equally funny, albeit involuntarily.

The only reason this pseudo-scientific effort has nothing but positive reviews and almost 7 points (so far...) is that no one seems to bother to (re)view this low-brow attempt at Science Fiction.

It's typical Roddenberry - he rehashes a mishmash of seemingly scientific ideas by bringing it all down to the level of an illiterate audience or an audience of kids. Alright, there may be a huge market for brainfree entertainment but it just doesn't deserve the rating it is getting here. It would if this was a forum for Trekkies, people believing in Ufos etc.

But this is a site where Monty Python movies get (only) around 8 stars but mentioning them would be like comparing apples (Python) and trash (this). The only question this mess leaves unanswered is: why even review it? I guess some things have to be done in defense of better movies.

I'd just like to point out Foxworth's portrayal of a "robot": It's dreadful.

Not every movie can be entirely original. But it's annoying to see obvious rip-offs from other movies combined with a lack of talent for story-telling (or in this case scene-telling). Obvious references which are simply taken and copied only with much lesser intelligence are: Coming to America, Big Lebowski, Do The Right Thing, Carwash, etc.

For instance the car smashing scene: It isn't even done well, the guy takes forever to notice that his car is being smashed, then he runs out on the street and there isn't a single funny line. The scene is straight out of Big Lebowski (a movie I didn't like and found less original than almost everyone else but at least there was some craft involved in the making of that particular movie).

And this happens all the time: people talk and do the most obvious things. No twists, no clever dialogue, just a shallow and flat deliverance. It sometimes even feels as if there was no script at all. People seem to have a general idea of a scene then just went along to see if anything (funny) would happen.

It's all good and fine to try to capture alleged everyday life but this requires a skill. The "jokes" throughout the movie have Police Academy quality. i.e. they are primitive, slap-sticky and have been seen a million times. Fat guys are just fat and that is supposedly funny enough. For them to quote and make fun of Rosa Parks, MLK has absolutely no reason or twist or whatever. At one point in the movie guys talk about being entitled to reparation payments like Jews for the Holocaust. It's mystifying what all these touchy subjects that appear out of nowhere in the movie are supposed to be doing for a film that seems to want to be a light-hearted snap-shot of some inner city neighbourhood.

It seems someone just wanted to cram every possible subject into a setting without rounding if off in any way thinking you can just loosely tie together scenes and ideas (from others), then mix in a few controversial subjects and voilà: Here's your masterpiece. Well: it didn't work.

What a disjointed, contrived mess this is. So I'll style my review after the movie:

This guy talking to the camera all the time. I don't like being pandered to. This movie is like someone who did something bad to you (i.e. the movie) but he keeps talking and being in your face to you trying to convince you to like his movie and not to hit him.

How many clichéd personas exactly are in this movie? It even has a Soprano type guy, a European girl who shows her mammaries, et cetera.

Amateurish Acting (AA) - I love failed movies like this for the use of unknown actors you are glad never to see in any other movie again. Oh but let me put a word in about Lauren Holly - uh...not good.

The plot is irrelevant. It's probably a sort of autobiography anyway. The "hero" has directed U2 in the past - surprisingly the director has directed U2's "Rattle and Hum". Wow...

And lastly the title: "Entropy" - I don't care about why it was decided to use that title but it surely makes the target viewers (US college students) go back and check the meaning of the word they have decided to ignore in one of last year's classes. Heck - I'll go out on a limb and speculate that the true meaning of the title is this: A mess that keeps getting more and more of a mess.

An alternative way of being entertained would be reading the wishy-washy entry of entropy on Wikipedia. Enjoy and be "sillyfied".