bluecrab22

Even if you are a patient film-watcher, this movie will try your patience. It starts off well enough, in a bleak part of Alaska (where it also ends, and where all the so-called "action" takes place). An oil company's exploratory team establishes a base and explores. Weird, inexplicable stuff happens. People have visions...or are they seeing real things? There are consequences. The characters aren't engaging so we don't care much, but we do get teased along for the ride. Are there monsters of some kind? Malevolent forces?

"Oh," you think. "That reminds me of "The Shining." "Ah," you sigh. "Aliens." "The Thing, the THING!" you think.

More supposedly weird stuff happens and finally, there's an ending of sorts, one which I think will disappoint most viewers. I gave this 3 stars because I like snow-and-ice settings in movies and it rather infuriatingly held my interest just enough that I wanted to see the outcome. I will not be watching it again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

"A place to live in harmony, a place we almost found." Kenny Vance

In 1964, I used to hang around a bar in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (where "Looking..." is set). I wasn't from the neighborhood, but they'd let me in even though I was but seventeen - the legal age at that time was eighteen. Most Fridays would find me at the bar, drinking and listening to the bar band play...and sing. It was obvious that the band guys could sing, but they were singing stuff like "Wooden Heart," maybe a Beatles tune or two - nothing that you could call doo-wop.

I began to bug the band with taunts like, "Hey, why doncha sing some harmony, man!?" and when they weren't performing I would talk to them a bit. They were local guys. One night after their set, after they'd heard one too many jibes from me, they dragged me into the men's room and sang some very nice harmony. They really hit some notes and I never taunted them again.

"Looking For An Echo" reminds me of those days. I found myself singing along to the harmony parts of "Please Say You Want Me," a song much-loved and covered in mid-1960s Brooklyn and Queens. And also, of course, that latter-day hymn to harmony, "Looking For An Echo."

A kind of musically oriented "Goodfellas" where the fellas really are good. A must-see for anyone who's ever sung a note of harmony.

For a period of time, I experienced some of the aspects depicted in Requiem For a Dream. Of course, it's not the first or last movie ever made about drug use, but of all the ones I have seen, it's the only one that ever made me really squirm. Compelling but very hard to watch at times, this is one movie that pulls no punches. I have to say, though, that I didn't perceive its theme as being along the lines of "here's what will happen to you if you take drugs." The movie doesn't preach or moralize, it just depicts. I did not find myself pitying the characters, but could not help but empathize with them. First time I saw this film, I watched it with my brother, who's also been around a bit, and who responded much the same as I did. My second viewing was just a couple of nights ago and was only partial (part way in and to the end). My reaction, even though I knew what was coming, was about the same. If you're looking for some feel-good story (like the utterly ridiculous "Man With the Golden Arm), then go elsewhere, but if you can handle it, "Requiem" will deliver the goods.