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Reviews
Yi ngoi (2009)
accidents really do happen
This is the sort of movie I love if done right. I will say right off the bat this one is not done well. The premise is good = a gang of contract killers arrange murders to look like accidents. The leader of the gang gets trapped by his own paranoia forgetting that accidents can really do happen.
The murders reminded me of those serial action contraptions we had as kids that have one thing lead to another in a complicated sequence--a marble rolls down an incline to land on a lever that activates a spring that pours some water etc etc.....What ever happened to those toys? I guess computer games perempted them.
The idea is good why couldn't they have polished it up and made the thing believable? The murders are accomplished by unbelievably complicated serial actions that are just that UNBELIEVABLE---the first target gets out of his car because a canvas sign is covering part of the windshield (this is near the end of one of these unbelievable trip wire sequences)...why doesn't he just drive on? Better yet have the sign cover the whole windshield and make it believable!!! In another murder an old man in a wheel chair rolls down a street out of control to the exact spot where a wire is dangling from a high tension overhead power line---put there by a kite in a rain storm.
The visuals kind of sum up the caliber of the film....gory cheesy Kung Fu death sequences with watery blood belching out of mouths..
Over all plot where paranoia tricks the main character is also a good idea...but come on write a more convincing story--an eclipse of the sun ruining one of these things dumb! yawn!
Art Film Quality? You have to be kidding---well maybe not considering what wins at those things.
How is wish this movie had been better!
DO NOT RECOMMEND
Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da (2011)
dull slow boring finally pulled the plug
Thank heavens for some warning reviews on IMDb.... I watched this movie for about 45 minutes and as the same 3 cars were still travelling down a dirt road at night stopping and starting looking for a body-- I thought it best to look at some of the reviews.
Fortunately there were some accurate ones about this dull movie. I even moved the little marker along (netflix streaming) to get a peak at future scenes and they all looked bleak boring filled with unattractive characters....
How did this thing get rated so high over all!
DO NOT RECOMMEND
High Fidelity (2000)
stupid fantasy
A handsome character (Cusack) has an endless string of pretty women leaving him and wants to find out why.
He is hip hip hip with dazzling knowledge about pop music.
There are 2 types of people who would like this film... middle aged males who fantasize about this type of life and women who would love to move in with this poor handsome lonely man.
None of it rings true except perhaps in the annals of Playboy magazine or maybe GQ.
A stupid fantasy.
The character of Black is really obnoxious and the scene where a rivals teeth are knocked out or the cameo of Bruce Springsteen are lows in the movie.
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
my theories proved
I watched this movie right after watching Followed. Conspiracy Theory cost $74 million and Followed $6,000.
Guess which one had the better actors the better script and story and held my interest?
I find the whole premise of conspiracy theories involving secret US government agencies tiresome and stupid...and adhered to by people who think they are smart but are not. You know the kind I mean. Or by the psychotic who can't help themselves.
Who thinks Julia Roberts is pretty? Yuck. And you get enough of Mel Gibson's cuteness and pretty eyes to fill your tank for the next millennium.
For me the star system is a joke, there are jillions of unheard of talented actors. Movies in general are dumbed down and boring as a medium as opposed to reading a good book. My quota is about 2 films per week and they have to be good ones...this one is not. My TV could be destroyed and my life would continue...the main reason I watch anything is to socialize with my partner.
Watch Followed.
D.O.A. (1949)
luminous poison and cat calls
This was a lousy film. It is almost impossible to follow the plot and the cliché amateur acting (like the bad thug who rolls his eyes)is painful to watch. As some one else put it at times you feel like you have to laugh in a painful way.
I could go on and on about the stupidity of the story: luminous poison?? what the he*l? I guess it was in the age when nuclear bombs and radioactivity were at the forefront of people's minds--why not just call the poison that?? A radioactive substance? It could have been like that Russian guy who just died in London.
Bad guys trafficking in iridium???
In short nothing is convincing or realistic in this horrible movie. I rented it only because it was part of a series entitled the "Best in Film Noir" marketed by Block Buster.
I expected things like Diabolique....hardly!!! This is pure garbage...Oh I forgot to mention cat calls when ever a pretty girl walks by...that really fits into a noir film atmosphere.
Don't even consider this movie. Every copy of it should be destroyed.
Family Business (1989)
Talky and choppy
I watched this movie without reading the cover... however it is sure not funny. Sean Connery slowly dies in prison...what a big laugh.
The movie has that feel of trying to turn Novel into Movie....it is very talky and has gaps in the plot. (Why would a kid with no offenses face 14 years with no parole for a nonviolent burglary? What happened with the payoff from the corrupt Chinese scientist?). In trying to cover the novel cover to cover it jumps from vignette to vignette in a choppy stiff manner. My impression is that it was trying to show that non violent "clean" burglary is better or at least no worse than legal tricks like buying condos that terminally ill cancer patients live in (something Broderick's girl friend does). OK, I can be twisted into this noir idea.
However because of the choppiness the movie doesn't flow well. What exactly is the purpose of the Jewish household at Passover?? I realize it is the in-laws...but it seems like a sort of isolated island from the rest of story and this happens a lot. Who exactly was Connery's girlfriend? I guess they had to put that in because it is in Chapter 26 of the novel.
This is the second bad movie I have seen Connery in. This one is light years better than Zardoz (the other terrible Connery movie)...but I am beginning to lose faith none the less.
Rent something else.
Big Momma's House (2000)
Make sure your seat is comfortable
I had not seen a comedy for years so I decided this might be quite funny. Predictable but still funny.
It was very predictable that is for sure. And not that funny.
I found scenes where Big Mama hits people in the nuts not funny. Or using Crisco to deliver a baby much more gross than funny. What is funny about someone sitting on the john?
I guess this movie was aimed at about 12 year olds.
I laughed maybe 2 or 3 times but they were kind of desperate laughs trying to find it more funny than it was.
It is padded with long periods between anything potentially funny. My chair got very hard and uncomfortable...if you have to watch this do it in a comfortable chair because you are going to get bored.
Mùi du du xanh (1993)
Dumb and Dull
I guess when people say this is beautifully filmed they are talking about the close ups of frogs and the cooking of meals. It certainly doesn't refer to the set which seems to be composed of about 3 rooms with no outside shots at all. Also all of it is filmed too close up.
I got sick of the little boy who keeps farting at Miu or pouring hot wax over ants...also do Vietnamese spend all their time sitting on their haunches? Kind of gross looking at least the way this movie depicts it--one close up of it would have been plenty not a dozen or more.
Then finally comes part two... a chick flick for Vietnamese girls with the perfect handsome rich man who spends all day playing the piano (He is cultured). The pretty maid steals him like the forbidden green mango fruit. Deep.
Except for a few nice close ups this film is a dud. It is sort of a soap opera with out dialog. It is cloyed. How is it beautiful?? The set looks completely fake.
No don't make the mistake I did and rent it because someone recommended it. I was expecting beautiful shots of the coastal mountains of Vietnam or something when I heard it was a visual gem.
I wanted to like this movie. I like foreign movies even prefer them. But this movie is dumb and dull. It will leave you irritated that something like this won a bunch of prizes.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Science Fiction with 500 pounds of sugar thrown in
I liked the comment of another viewer...Spielberg takes science fiction and adds 500 pounds of sugar. I might add he also adds 8000 pounds of rehashed filming ideas (the woods at night) and story gimmicks from his last 50 films and other pop "science fiction" films =anorexic 4 fingered aliens..cute sassy furry toys etc etc etc... I also just watched Metropolis and tell me Joe the gigalo doesn't resemble Marie?
It is basically a hodge podge of gimmicks designed to hook the maximum number of viewers. I can see the producers saying lets add a dash of sex and punk rock....maybe making motor cycles look like evil dogs would update things for the ex punkers.
Here are a couple lousy flaws with the logic(?) of this movie. Other comments have fortunately covered the others better than I could.
1)Why have the kid (something about his beady too small staring eyes gets on your nerves)smash another robot's head after one the major premises of this movie is that robots should be treated like humans. How does that not contradict everything?
2)The complete nonsense downer of space time constraints? What the ****???
Don't rent or watch this movie!
Things to Come (1936)
sets of clean advanced future
The dialog in this movie at the beginning is so corny that it is hard to believe that it was filmed during the lifetime of people alive today. As far as being a movie that stimulates deep ideas about war and mankind etc...not for me anyway. What I always wanted to watch this movie for was the sets and scenes of a clean advanced idyllic future. These scenes and sets are kind of neat although shaping the space gun like a revolver barrel with a gun sight is pretty silly considering the hydraulics and other parts to the space gun were great. There is even what looks like a heads up display in the control room. I didn't see how a revolt could start because two people were to be launched into space...that rang completely hollow. Any intelligent person knows war and tribal like thoughts are present in all of us we don't need that to be spelled out. I suppose if you want to over analyze things the film shows that old failed ideas can be reborn again and again...for a present day example think of communism making a comeback in Nepal or Venezuela...you would have thought it discredited at least for a generation. Is this movie a catalyst for deep thought? ....it is not at least for the sophistication of audiences today. Would I watch it again...no.
The World Is Not Enough (1999)
This cost 135 million dollars?????
This is a really lousy Bond. Is it because the daughter Broccoli is the producer? It was far inferior to the previous one in the sequence Goldeneye the last one produced by her father. The story is full of flaws apparently written by someone who knows nothing about the world. A good example is the casino scene where is it? Azerbajin? Lots of wealthy token blacks there. Elektra saves a church and becomes a heroine in a Moslem country? The action scenes look so fake and the props so bad...after the pipe line blows up Christmas and Bond are crawling around the crater filled with a couple trees that were obviously cut down cleanly with a saw. Heavy water is dangerous but not plutonium?? The whole story was so inaccurate and stupid it hardly deserves analysis. I finally started to fast forward it. God awful. If the daughter is responsible I hope she improves. I have my doubts based on this piece of garbage. Wikipedia says this movie cost 135 million. Where did the money go? Certainly not the writers or prop makers. Why didn't they hire someone who knew something about geography or science to advise the writer?
Indochine (1992)
Nostalgia for what never was
You don't miss something until it is gone. This film is loaded as one commenter stated with nostalgia for what never was. A Frenchman going to Indochina in 1930s would be no different than an American going to Samoa or Guam or Puerto Rico today; some did it to make money or fill a private sector job most did it for government work. In Indochina I bet you could count on the head of a pin the number of beautiful women (De Neuve) who ran large rubber plantations and frequented opium dens---n'existaient pas! except in the mind of the French Danielle Steele who wrote this silly thing. It would have been infinitely more enjoyable if it had stayed Danielle Steele instead a UN human rights/ignorant view of colonialism Sunday school lesson.
Lan feng zheng (1993)
long and confusing
If this movie is banned in China and considered daring imagine what one told by an unsympathetic non communist would be like. For the fact is that all the characters in this film appear to be more or less kowtowing to the communists or aspiring party members themselves. One of the harshest things you hear is an old woman who wonders if there has been enough revolution. In fact it has the feel of a communist propaganda movie with eager smiling people who never complain. Various sources estimate that between 15 to 40 million people starved during the great leap forward...you would not get that impression from this film. I want to see what the real truth and tragedy were like. This is just a pale start.