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gordonm88
Reviews
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
Bad in so many ways
Look, I agree with all of the reviewers -this honestly is the worst film of all time. But somehow, that simple statement really doesn't capture the situation.
Consider if there were all time "Anti-Oscars" given out for the worst of film-making, here are some of the "Anti-Oscars" this film would win:
Worst Film Editing of All-Time - Manos wins this in its first 6 minutes, but honestly it never gets much better after that. It is as if the person editing this film had never seen a movie before.
Worst Directing Ever - Everything about this film is unconvincing, but the action is laughable. After despairing that their young daughter is lost in the woods, Mom and Dad stay rooted to the spot as their daughter returns and wait for their daughter to run up to them. Policeman investigating the sound of shooting walk about 2 feet forward and then conclude their investigation has turned up nothing. And ON and ON.... I have never seen a movie in which no one seems to move - its as if everyone has been directed to stand on their spots and not leave them during a scene.
Worst screenplay - When the family isn't caught up in the evil goings-on, the Mom and Dad stand in front of a painting and just talk about it. Then some action occurs, and after its over -Mom and Dad return to the painting and talk about it. And then the cycle repeats again. And speaking of deja vu cycles, the movie has several scenes that it keeps repeating.
Worst costuming - Torgo and his deformed legs are now a cinematic legend. But there are also the wives of the Master, dressed in ways totally inappropriate to their action.
Worst acting awards - Some of the acting is world-class bad in Manos, but I don't believe that this is the worst acting ever. The actor playing Torgo actually does create a sense of character. Most of the actors and actresses are done in by the "Worst Directing Ever" (I can't say that enough.) But the actress and actor playing the Mom and Dad are totally unconvincing. The Mom character keeps her elbows glued to her side, no matter what is occurring.
Oh, the Horror. the Horror,
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
Cinematic drudgery. Pursue happiness elsewhere.
The deadly slow pace and narrow emotional range of the screenplay absolutely smother this film. There is no suspense, no laughter, no romance, no surprise, and very little joy - just earnestness and determination.
The son is a real problem. He lacks charm and expressiveness - he is carried around like a sack of potatoes, dutifully speaking his dialog - but the audience that I was in never connected with him.
This is the closest thing to a one person film I've ever seen. Smith is literally in every scene -everything revolves around him. He is believable but ultimately does not create a very memorable character.
And ultimately, after two hours of this monotonic drudgery my wife and I were looking forward to an intensely happy ending that never quite came. The ending arrives without any intensity, any uplift, any surge. This film was the opposite of epic and just failed to either entertain or move us.
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Great acting, powerful story but "What did he say?"
Acting: Overall, the acting is superb. Morgan Freeman and Hillary Swanks were brilliant, and Clint was good but not great. How difficult is it to play a crusty old man that grouches at everyone? Clint's acting could have been a bit more nuanced at those times in the story when he is supposed to feel sad or uncertain or frustrated. Most supporting characters were also tremendous - totally convincing and they did a lot with their characters. A priest and a family lawyer were the two characters that did not work for me.
Cinematography was good with an effective gritty realism to the first 70% of the movie. There were some some noticeable lapses in story-telling and continuity.
Worst problem with the film was the sound. Much of the narration and dialog early in the movie were hard to make out, Morgan Freeman is occasionally unintelligible. And in a climatic scene, Clint Eastwood chooses to deliver the most memorable line in the movie in a whisper that left my wife and I asking "what did he say? What did you hear?"
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
The most sadistic Romans since Caligula!
Self-indulgently brutal - the long scenes of torture are unprecedented and almost orgiastic in their excessiveness. Virtually none of the beauty of the Christ story is shown here - instead we are shown sadistic Romans who love to inflict pain and villainous Jewish leaders. The inhumanity of the Romans and Jews is hammered home far more than the love and goodness of the prophet they martyred.
Why was this movie made? The confirmed Christians who attended the movie with me were more appalled than exhilirated and said that they would not see it a second time.
Technically, some of the film editing was clunky and sophomore-ish. The appearances of Satan were well done, though - very creative and creepy.
Full-Court Miracle (2003)
The phoniest basketball game ever?
Auggh! Totally unconvincing depiction of a basketball game. So many childish errors that credibility is continually punctured. Even the antics of the onlookers are poorly acted - nothing looks goofier than poorly staged pictures of people cheering and reacting in an unconvincing manner.
And I am the only one who thought the Jewish miracle message was a bit heavy-handed given the trivial nature of the b-ball contest? I do applaud the attention and dignity that the script gives to the Jewish faith, though - the movie has noble intentions.
Movies get much, much better than this. I gave it 4/10.
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
It's Sally, Stupid!
This movie takes a hopeless premise,and mixes in two actors - Robin Williams and Sally Fields - who are so dissimilar in their talents that their pairing should be D.O.A., and pulls out a surprisingly funny and effective movie. I am stunned at the quality.
Understand that Robin Williams has very limited range to his acting. See the opening scenes of Mrs. Doubtfire where he quits his job -dubbing voices into cartoons - over a trivial moral issue. Is the scene convincing? Does he appear to have the right level of passion to truly walk out on his job? No. As an actor, he is merely Robin Williams in his films. But his manic side really distinguishes him from any other actor alive.
Sally Field, however, is a great actress (and greatly unappreciated, too.) She has the range to do almost anything - but cracking jokes is not her forte, and manic is not within her range at all.
So what happens? Robin is enormously funny when he is getting his makeup applied by Harvey Fierstein, gigging the court-appointed monitor, and tormenting Pierce Brosnan. But in the Robin-only scenes, the film stands still -as if he is doing a stand-up routine.
But when Sally is on-camera, the story moves.... and there is emotional power in the scenes. She is dead-on convincing in almost every scene, in almost every emotional state. She tells no jokes and creates a realness and a context that brings the best out of Robin's emoting. There would be no movie without Robin, but it is Sally that makes the movie something much more than Three Men and A Baby.
Even Pierce Brosnan works - in an unusual twist he plays a male version of the type of role that many gorgeous actresses are accustomed to play - his role is simply to be good-looking and charming so that other characters can be jealous or lust-filled. And yet, even he shows 3-dimensionality to his character, with the help of some sensitive script-writing.
So its a triumph - a genuinely interesting and fun film. Bravo!
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
How NOT to use a Stacey-Nelkin sex-toy android
Nothing in this movie makes sense.
*****Spoilers Ahead*****
1. An "on-call" doctor who is so busy that he can't make time for his kids impulsively stays away from his job for a few days.
2. The doctor sleeps with the daughter of a man who was just murdered - and the grieving daughter (the beautiful Stacey Nelkin) does this joyously despite the fact that neither daughter nor doctor show the slightest amount of romantic interest in each other. Zero chemistry.
3. The daughter is revealed to be an incredibly life-like beautiful android that acts like a real female through many complex situations and that the doctor has had sex with repeatedly. And what is the use that the evil scientist has apparently put this delectable Stacey-Nelkin sex-toy android to? He assigns her to the "undercover" mission of checking on the hospital where another of his androids has set himself on fire after conspicuously murdering a patient? And she is the one that then persuades the doctor to investigate the toy company because, as she says "I'm not leaving until I find out what happened to my father?" Does no one else think this is incredibly inconsistent and unbelievable in many ways?
4. The mad scientist may be a male witch ???
5. The master plan to kill children is based on the assumption that they will be sitting in front of a television at exactly 9:00 p.m. on Halloween while wearing a rubber mask over their head? And they will be doing this because commercials say that they will announce a "big giveaway" at that time? Gee, my kids never watch TV while wearing their masks and are kind of busy with other things at 9:00 p.m. on Halloween.
6. No one seems to notice these metallic discs on the back of their masks?
7. The metallic disks are show to have fragile microcircuitry but upon malfunctioning are able to arc out forces sufficient to melt human faces (powered by a chip from a stone from Stonehenge.)
8. Some yellow organic gooey substance oozes out of androids.
9. The androids are killed when the good guys drop the microchips on them even though the androids are accustomed to being around the microchips all the time. Fortunately, the androids die while standing in a perfect circle, which causes a magical force circle to appear which somehow bounces over to the evil scientist which - oh forget it, its too stupid to repeat.
I could go on and on, but this is taking time away from my new obsession: manufacturing a Stacey-Nelkin sex-toy android in my basement. Rating: 3/10
A Christmas Story (1983)
Painfully dull
Given the reviews of this film, I was astonished at how negatively I reacted to it. I watched it with my wife and 11-year old daughter - both are very sentimental people. All three of us agreed - this film is painfully slow, dull and many of the humorous bits just lay there. The acting of the child that plays the younger brother is so bad that it jolts you out of believing in the story. And several of the bits - such as the winter clothes and the "major award" - were so over the top that they were more phony than funny.
Some of the screenplay was elegantly written - but all the best lines are spoken by an unseen narrator whose delivery deflates the prose. And the narrator, who is supposed to be a grown version of the child protagonist - has a voice and speaking style that is jarringly different than the young child or any of the child's relatives or parents. It all seemed wrong. It just didn't work for me. Your mileage may vary.
I gave it 5/10.
When a Stranger Calls (1979)
Twenty minutes of greatness!
The first twenty minutes is one of the scariest, creepiest scenes ever filmed. I've watched it several times over several decades and it is still hard to sit through. It just takes all the oxygen out of the air for me.
The rest of the movie is boring, apparently reflecting its origin of being add-on footage to the original 20 minute short film. There's a brief, tepid scare at the end.
One of the hardest movies to assign a rating to! Its like many relationships -they start out with twenty minutes of greatness and then disappoint!
I gave it a 7/10.
Daddy Day Care (2003)
Great fun for the family
Some of the reviewers of Daddy Day Care need to get a life. Too much analysis by film fans worrying about where this film fits into Eddie Murphy's oeuvre. Get a life! Get married, have children, let them grow a bit and then sit down with your spouse and kids and watch Daddy Day Care. You'll laugh at Murphy and at your own experiences as a parent. Your kids will laugh as well. I found that it's nice to view an Eddie Murphy movie with my preteens without squirming at his edgy humor. And yes, Daddy Day Care is a quasi-remake of Mr. Mom, but Eddie Murphy is a far more gifted comedian than Michael Keaton (can you imagine Micheal Keaton as Donkey in Shrek?) and this movie has more genuine humor than Mr. Mom. Lots of like-able characters, the child actors turned in good performances, and the adult characters were varied without being over-the top extreme or bizarre. Nicely done. I gave it 7/10.
Shanghai Noon (2000)
Often laugh out-loud funny, but it could have been better
This unpretentious comedy has wooden acting, a few very funny spots and great stunt fighting by Jackie Chan. This was my first Jackie Chan flick, and I enjoyed it enough to try another - probably the sequel, Shanghai Knights. Inclusion of puns is often a reliable indication that a comedy will be lame but the puns are good (Shanghai Noon? Chon Wang?) and the comedy is better. The movie fails to grab the audience for the first 15 or 20 minutes but then finds its stride and becomes more engaging. Many other reviewers comment on the chemistry between Chan and Owen Wilson (which gets better as the film progresses), but there is a total lack of chemistry between Liu and Chan. Indeed, the scenes with the most passion are the ones between Liu and bad guy Lo Fong (played by Roger Yuan). And Brandon Merrill sizzles, although no one in the film seems to notice. After about twenty minutes my wife said "everyone is just saying their lines." I did lower my rating for bad acting, but then gave extra credit for Chan's acrobatic, interactive fight choreography. The fight scenes are both funny and entertaining. I gave it a 6 out of 10.
Don't Say a Word (2001)
Unrealistic, but well done
This is a well done film. Who doesn't like Michael Douglas? and Brittany Murphy does a great job of playing the disturbed teenager who emerges out of psychosis. Plenty of suspense and well-paced.
Unfortunately, the plotline requires that the bad guys be able to monitor Michael Douglas everywhere he goes. One wonders how three rough-looking felons, fresh from 10 years in confinement, put ultramodern spy cameras in every room of Douglas' apartment without him noticing. Oh, and tapping his phone line and his cell phone, and....
And how can a tiny woman in a full leg cast beat the heck out of a hardened criminal armed with a knife? Twice? And how does ancient, creaky Michael Douglas battle to a standstill a guy who looks like Sabre-tooth from X-Men? Oh, c'mon! I didn't believe it!
Still, its fun and worth watching. Kick back and enjoy.
Prince Valiant (1997)
Worst special effects and stunts of the late 1990s?
Beautiful sets, great costumes and makeup.
Run of the mill script. Mediocre acting.
Bad special effects and stunts,and bad film-editing.
The special effects were truly terrible. Just stop-the-movie awful. Alligators that don't move and clearly are not alive. One alligator, clad in plate mail (huh?), shoots vertically out of the water into the air and descends down onto the stonework beside the water, where it doesn't move -while characters run about, pretending to be fearful of the clearly-lifeless, unmoving armor-clad alligator.
And lots of characters swinging Tarzan-like on ropes, slamming feet first into the villains. Except the actors are clearly hanging on ropes being moved by an overhead crane. And the ropes move slowly, as if there was great concern on the set about hurting the actors. In these scenes the villain conveniently stands in one spot until the slow-swinging good guy finally collides with him. This isn't a one-time screw-up; the slow-swinging Tarzan-bit happens over and over again.
The film editing is bad enough that it makes it hard to follow the story at spots. And the stunts and special effects kept blowing up the suspension of disbelief.
There is plenty of no-brainer action, though, and high production values on the sets and costumes. This could have been fun if it was better made.
Beware! The Blob (1972)
Beware! The Disembodied Butt!
First the background: A fragment of the blob is mysteriously kept in the freezer compartment of Godfrey Cambridge's refrigerator in his trailer home. His wife leaves it on the counter allowing it to thaw. The Blob consumes a fly, then a kitten, then Godfrey Cambridge's wife.
So here's the scene: The Blob, which now looks like about two servings of red jello, is spread out on Godfrey Cambridge's easy chair. The camera does a tight focus on the easy chair. Slowly, from the side of screen, Godfrey's butt starts to come into view -clad in garish trousers. Apparently Godfrey intends to sit down and doesn't see the red jello! More and more of his butt comes into view, eclipsing the scene, as eerie background music builds the suspense. His disembodied butt hovers inches above the red jello! And then - it suddenly settles down! And the camera cuts away to an unrelated scene, mercifully sparing the audience the carnage that must be occurring.
For fans of Godfrey Cambridge's butt who are still young at heart, Beware! The Blob is a must see movie. For all others this movie is a 1 out of 10.
The Straight Story (1999)
A long film that tells a short story very well
Powerful film, wonderfully acted by Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek (
all other parts are quite minor). Beautiful cinematography, although the
camera exhibits a slight obsession to dwell on the physical ugliness and
quirkiness of rural people (this is David Lynch directing! what else would
one expect?) And the script is marvelous, with lines that I will remember
and treasure all my life.
Negatives? The pace of the plot. The story moves at the pace of
a...well... of a lawnmower. While undoubtedly intentional, the glacial
pace
of the film will chase away a lot of viewership. And the plot is
unambitious - a long film telling a short story very well. It is hard to
rank this film as high as other films that tackled more ambitious stories
(e.g., Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, even Minority Report). I
give it 8/10.
The Straight Story (1999)
A long film that tells a short story very well
Powerful film, wonderfully acted by Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek (
all other parts are quite minor). Beautiful cinematography, although the
camera exhibits a slight obsession to dwell on the physical ugliness and
quirkiness of rural people (this is David Lynch directing! what else would
one expect?) And the script is marvelous, with lines that I will remember
and treasure all my life.
Negatives? The pace of the plot. The story moves at the pace of
a...well... of a lawnmower. While undoubtedly intentional, the glacial
pace
of the film will chase away a lot of viewership. And the plot is
unambitious - a long film telling a short story very well. It is hard to
rank this film as high as other films that tackled more ambitious stories
(e.g., Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, even Minority Report). I
give it 8/10.
Suspiria (1977)
Moody masterpiece
Suspiria has garnered a set of mixed reviews on IMDB, but the film worked for me. Argento's use of color, musical score, lighting and camera movement combine to create a moody masterpiece. The four or five scenes of violence each deliver something unusual and memorable. Jessica Harper is hauntingly beautiful as the American student in unfamiliar surroundings. There were several moments that will stay with me - the opening murders, the blind pianist's death, even a simple scene like Jessica Harper standing in a downpour and asking the taxi driver for help with her bags - and not receiving any response or help at all, thus creating a sense of detachment.
Yes, there are indeed some unexplained aspects of the storyline, say, instances where the motivation of the coven is unclear. But why insist that everything be clear? We're dealing with the supernatural not with an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
Suspiria does some things extremely well and delivers a cinematic experience that is top rank. I gave it 9/10.
Piranha (1978)
Lame and annoying
Imagine putting dozens of children into a swimming area and asking them to scream as if they are scared and being bitten by fish. This is what the director of Piranha does, and the result is chaotic, shrill screaming, children moving around without purpose - sort of like a day care out of control. Tension-creating or fear-invoking? No. Just annoying.
The movie never scared me. Perhaps some graphic scenes that showed partially devoured people would have created a sense of danger. The underwater shots of little fish swimming around looked like an aquarium scene - but were a total failure as a tension-creating effect. Just lame. The lead actor and actress play the movie straight and work hard at their roles, but their acting is wooden.
Not the worst "animals attack!" movie ever made (see Barracuda, The Swarm, or Beaks: The Movie! for worse) but light years from Jaws, or The Birds or even Anaconda.