tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36495948115521392562024-03-11T02:35:56.125-07:00Roger Ebert's Worst ReviewsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-46935609714032070812013-03-07T17:07:00.000-08:002018-08-28T17:22:27.412-07:0079. The Master (2012)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hFgvAhOYpmKEQzWnYkikjV9-z0oh1NBH4rZ-j6gr6S-k8aLWK_kytqmQBvVWO7eMVC7f-CwPjOIab_DNCmC7p91rtqQymlrSFvHJ1wGmLcZOVWwGN6nzBcK8iBhjbvNniNdhVAq9TMu1/s1600/master.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hFgvAhOYpmKEQzWnYkikjV9-z0oh1NBH4rZ-j6gr6S-k8aLWK_kytqmQBvVWO7eMVC7f-CwPjOIab_DNCmC7p91rtqQymlrSFvHJ1wGmLcZOVWwGN6nzBcK8iBhjbvNniNdhVAq9TMu1/s320/master.jpg" /></a>
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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In his review Roger said:
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"Paul Thomas Anderson's <i>The Master</i> is fabulously well-acted and crafted, but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air. It has rich material and isn't clear what it thinks about it. It has two performances of Oscar caliber, but do they connect? Its title character is transparently inspired by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, but it sidesteps any firm vision of the cult religion itself — or what it grew into." He finishes by saying "Paul Thomas Anderson is one of our great directors. <i>The Master</i> shows invention and curiosity. It is often spellbinding. But what does it intend to communicate?"
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Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie Quell and Philip Seymour Hoffman plays "The Master" Lancaster Dodd in this film about a charismatic cult leader and the drunken, mentally deranged person he is trying to reform.
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The movie opens in 1945 with Freddie in the navy. We don't know if he is damaged because of what he went through in the war, but there is no doubt that he is a wounded soul. Freddie and some other sailors are on a beach and the music in the background is strange and unsettling. The war in the Pacific ends, and Freddie is looking for alcohol. He is later treated by the navy for some form of mental instability.
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Back in civilian life Freddie doesn't really adjust too well, ending up in a fist fight with a customer at his photography job. He later almost poisons a fellow worker with his home made alcohol drink. He ends up stowing a way on a boat and there he meets Lancaster Dodd, whose followers call him Master. Dodd tells Freddie that he is a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, and a theoretical philosopher.
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Dodd drinks some of Freddie's home made stuff with him, and then exposes him to some of his methods. He "processes" Freddie by asking him a series of questions. He wants to make him his protege. When Dodd is interviewing Freddie he asks him some questions that show us that he is a little out there too. He asks if Freddie is a member of "Any invader force on this planet or anywhere else?"
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We see a little of Dodd's philosophy as he is talking to some of his followers. He believes that their current life is only one of many for the spirit which is just using it's current vessel. He says that .. "we are, all of us, working at breakneck speeds and in unison towards capturing the mind's fatal flaws and correcting it back to its inherent state of perfect. Whilst righting civilization and eliminating war and poverty and therefore, the atomic threat." Dodd is clearly a megalomaniac on a mission and so is his wife (Amy Adams).
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The movie is quirky, disturbing, fascinating and very well done.
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How do cults and religions get started? Mormonism, Buddhism, Christian Science, Islam, Christianity, Scientology ... they all got their start with a charismatic leader, and sometimes with very little else. If that is all the movie was intending to explore, then I think that it is enough. I thought the movie was great on a first viewing, and even better when I watched it again.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-82922973830393605932013-02-04T15:26:00.005-08:002013-02-04T15:34:00.905-08:0078. Scrooged (1988)
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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In his one star review Roger said:
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`Scrooged" is one of the most disquieting, unsettling films to come along in quite some time. It was obviously intended as a comedy, but there is little comic about it, and indeed the movie's overriding emotions seem to be pain and anger. This entire production seems to be in dire need of visits from the ghosts of Christmas.
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Bill Murray has kind of snuck up on me as one of my favorite actors. He is one of those actors who I just enjoy seeing up on the screen. <i>Caddyshack</i>, <i>Stripes</i>, <i>Tootsie</i>, <i>Ghostbusters </i>, <i>Quick Change</i>, <i>What About Bob?</i>, <i>Groundhog Day </i>, <i>Ed Wood </i>, <i>Wild Things </i>, <i>Rushmore </i>, <i>The Royal Tenenbaums </i>, <i>Lost in Translation </i>, <i>Coffee and Cigarettes </i>, <i>The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou </i>, <i>Broken Flowers </i>, <i>Get Low </i>, <i>Moonrise Kingdom </i> and <i> Zombieland</i> are all on his impressive resume. In some of these movies he was just supposed to have a small part, but he made the movie.
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I don't think that <i>Scrooged</i> was one of his best, but I still enjoyed it when I recently saw it on Netflix. Bill Murray played a jerk who was president of a television station, He only cared about himself and making money. He is currently scheduling a live performance of <i>A Christmas Carol</i> not caring that the crew is going to have to work on Christmas Eve. He gets visited by the ghosts who show him his past, present and future and it seems like Frank Cross finally gets the message.
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There have been many Bill Murray movies better than this one, and there have been versions of a Christmas Carol better than this too, but I still think that this is worth seeing, even if it is just to watch Bill Murray.
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The movie has a 6.9 rating on IMDB and a 67% approval rating with the audience on Rotten Tomatoes. Not a great movie but much better than the one star Roger gave it.
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<hr><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-25370642593305892042013-02-03T12:55:00.002-08:002013-10-14T10:03:35.606-07:0077. Stargate (1994)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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In his one star review Roger said:
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Let's say a stargate was discovered, allowing instantaneous travel across the universe and opening onto a planet that could be inhabited by humans. What would the appropriate response be? Awe? Ambition? Curiosity? Not at all. Col. O'Neil's orders: "Track down signs of any possible danger. If I find any, blow up the stargate." The movie is so lacking in any sense of wonder that it hurtles us from one end of the universe to the other, only to end in a gunfight between the good guys and the bad guys while the colonel's bomb ticks down. (Like all movie bombs, it comes equipped with a bright red digital readout device that displays the countdown while beeping.) "Stargate" is like a film school exercise. Assignment: Conceive of the weirdest plot you can think of, and reduce it as quickly as possible to action movie cliches. If possible, include sun god Ra, and make sure something gets blowed up real good.
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I'm not going to argue that the movie wasn't a little far-fetched. It was. But for some reason I still found the movie to be entertaining. The concept of an alien race forming the Egyptian civilization and then leaving the earth had me hooked from the beginning. Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (James Spader) deciphers the symbols on the stargate the aliens left behind and discovers that it is actually a portal to another world.
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A team led by Colonel Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell) then travels through the stargate, to both investigate what is on the other side, and also see if there was any danger there. Jackson goes along on the military mission to help operate the stargate.
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When they get to the other side they find an alien who once again is posing as the god Ra. He has made slaves out of the inhabitants of the planet and O'Neil and Jackson soon join in to help the locals.
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This is not a thinking man's sci-fi movie like <i>Blade Runner</i>, <i>A Clockwork Orange</i> or <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i> but it is a pretty good, light, science fiction adventure. Are there holes in the plot? Sure there are, but I still found it fun to watch.
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The movie which grossed almost $200 million worldwide, has a 6.9 rating on IMDB and a 75% approval rating with the audience on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie also gave birth to books, video games and television series based on the movie. Not a great movie but much better than the one star Roger gave it.
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-28510265136246232042012-08-17T08:08:00.000-07:002017-03-14T18:21:57.424-07:0076. The Field (1990)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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I recently watched this movie and then looked to see Roger's <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19910301/REVIEWS/103010302/1023">review</a> of it and was stunned to see how much we disagreed. Roger said: "This was not a work that called out to be filmed. Once filmed, it calls out to be forgotten." He goes on to say:
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If I were watching this as a play, I might just be able to care about the field, if it were located far offstage. But the motion picture camera has an unforgiving way of photographing anything that is put before it, and so we can easily see that the McCabes, father and son and father's father and all, have been wasting their efforts dragging that wet seaweed up the cliff to fertilize the field, because the village is surrounded by thousands of acres of prime pasturage. Tom Berenger is also on a fool's errand. Why does he need to strip the field when if there is one thing the district has more of than fields, it is mineral rights, and if there is one thing it has no need of, it is gravel? No, this play is not about the field, it is about eternal questions. Questions about (1) a man's right to the land, (2) whether the owner should sell out to the highest bidder and (3) whether the Irish in America have lost their respect for the land and its people, and forgotten the old ways.
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Roger missed the point of the movie. It is about the field. The land, particularly after the famines, became the religion to the people. To sell or split the land, which could just barely support a family as it was, could only lead to the ruin of a family and a descent in to another class of people. They would become tinkers, wanderers, gypsies ... something not quite Irish. Bull McCabe was fighting for his family, for his descendants and for his heritage.
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In a conversation with the village priest Bull McCabe explains his feelings:
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McCabe: Why're you interfering, Father? This is none of the Church's business. <br />
Father Doran: It's the Widow's field. She has the right to sell it.
McCabe: No. It's my field. It's my child. I nursed it. I nourished it. I saw to its every want. I dug the rocks out of it with my bare hands and I made a living thing of it! My only want is that green grass, that lovely green grass, and you want to take it away from me, and in the sight of God I can't let you do that! <br />
Father Doran: Can't you find another field? <br />
McCabe: Another field? Another field? Jesus, you're as foreign here as any Yank. Another field? Are you blind? Those hands, do you see those hands? Those rocks! It was a dead thing! Don't you understand?
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The movie deserves to be seen for the great acting alone. Richard Harris was nominated for an Academy Award. Sean Bean was really good as Bull's son and John Hurt may have been the best of all in his role as the traditional village idiot.
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But I think it goes beyond that. For an understanding of the Irish, to understand the suffering they have gone through, to understand their love of the land, this movie needs to be seen. When Roger says "have been wasting their efforts dragging that wet seaweed up the cliff to fertilize the field, because the village is surrounded by thousands of acres of prime pasturage", I think the Bull answers him best saying: "Another field? Another field? Jesus, you're as foreign here as any Yank. Another field? Are you blind? Those hands, do you see those hands? Those rocks! It was a dead thing! Don't you understand?"
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The Bull sacrificed a son and his life for his land and for the field he needed to supplement his land. It is hard for an outsider to understand. It doesn't seem to make sense, but that is the beauty of this movie. <i>The Field</i> tries to explain the Irish, which is not an easy thing to do, but I think this film does it very well.
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JjKJnsMwHk0?rel=0" width="480"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-89452613519080504442012-06-10T08:16:00.000-07:002012-08-08T16:02:37.606-07:0075. Escape From New York (1981)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkD542Bi69Y8XhdNnp7ZtO2E6-VzvS9jN-E8XDbqdDAGXObsE6kW3VQAvbmqiep1oBAN2fej-TxYN0VoIszratEFOgIByQTB4k7zd6MPtlKPvSg0dU5hX5UMyKh3tVYpI5HzmXGa5Z7Vhr/s1600/escape.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkD542Bi69Y8XhdNnp7ZtO2E6-VzvS9jN-E8XDbqdDAGXObsE6kW3VQAvbmqiep1oBAN2fej-TxYN0VoIszratEFOgIByQTB4k7zd6MPtlKPvSg0dU5hX5UMyKh3tVYpI5HzmXGa5Z7Vhr/s400/escape.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5586208418256040258" /></a><br />
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Bob Hauk: You going to kill me, Snake? <br />
Snake Plissken: Not now, I'm too tired. Maybe later. <br />
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Roger, for some reason, doesn't post this review at his site, but here it is.<br />
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<blockquote>John Carpenter's <em>Escape from New York </em>is a cross between three of the most reliable ingredients in pulp fantasy: (1) the President is Missing, (2) New York is a Jungle, and (3) the Anti-Hero as Time Bomb. Carpenter has gone after an original angle on each of the ingredients, with disappointing results. <br />
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The president, for example, would be much more convincing if he were not played as a sniveling wimp by Donald Pleasence (of all people). The movie's New York of 1997 would have been more interesting if it were seen as a genuinely different prison society, rather than as a recycled version of <em>The Warriors</em>. And the anti-hero needs more human qualities and quirks; he seems lifted from old spaghetti Westerns. <br />
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These basic problems prevent the movie from becoming more than it is, a competent job of craftmanship. <em>Escape from New York </em>has the misfortune of being a merely good thriller in a summer when the standard has already been set by <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark</em>. And yet it's fun to see old standby science-fiction ingredients rehashed for our cynical times. <br />
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The vision of a post-civilization New York has been used in several movies, most memorably in <em>The World, the Flesh and the Devil </em>(1959), in which Harry Belafonte walked down city streets that were all the more frightening because they were simply deserted and quiet. <br />
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At the beginning of <em>Escape from New York</em>, we learn that the city was turned into a federal maximum security prison in 1987, and that several years later the island is ruled by prowling gangs who have their own sources of power, food and clout. When we see New York, however, it is essentially just a garbage-strewn junkyard roamed by wild-eyed crazies. <br />
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How do people survive there? If the movie had provided specific details, it could have been fascinating. Instead, we get tantalizing hints of how things work; for example, a gang leader (Isaac Hayes) has a small oil well pumping inside his headquarters. <br />
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The president has been missing, endangered, kidnapped, blackmailed or otherwise inconvenienced in countless other movies and novels. This time, after terrorists hijack Air Force One and crash it into Manhattan Island, the president escapes inside an ingenious armored pod that is never explained. He is then held hostage, along with a cassette tape that contains the means of preventing World War III. Carpenter's decision to cast Donald Pleasence in the role reminds us that Pleasence added great credibility and psychic weight to Halloween, in the role of the psychiatrist. But he never makes a convincing president. <br />
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The movie's plot revolves around the decision of the police commissioner (Lee Van Cleef) to send a convicted criminal into New York to bring the president back alive. The criminal is a Special Forces veteran (he fought, we learn, at Leningrad and Siberia). If he gets the president out within 24 hours, he gets a pardon. If he doesn't, tiny time bombs rupture his major arteries. <br />
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The criminal is played by Kurt Russell, a talented veteran of several Disney movies (and of the title role in Carpenter's TV movie, Elvis). Russell is so determined to shake his Disney image that he goes whole hog, with an eye patch, a three-day beard and growl so hoarse he seems to be moaning most of the time. It's an interesting idea for a performance, maybe, but nothing is done to give the character human qualities, and so we're allowed to remain detached about his plight. <br />
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A bunch of familiar faces turn up in supporting roles. Ernest Borgnine is the last of the wise-guy New York cabbies, still looking for fares in the jungle. Isaac Hayes is the gang leader, Harry Dean Stanton is his personal advisor, and Adrienne Barbeau is his "squeeze." Making this list, I keep being reminded of the word I started out with: Ingredients. Everything is here, and it all works fairly well, but it never quite comes together into an involving story or an overpowering adventure. </blockquote><br />
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It's not easy to make a dark movie that is fun to watch but I think <em>Escape from New York</em> accomplishes that exceptionally well. It has a comic book tone about it, but it all really works for me. <br />
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The measure of a really good movie is that it gets better with each viewing, and <em>Escape from New York</em> certainly does that. It has developed in to a cult favorite because of its iconic leading character. <em>Empire</em> has named Snake Plissken one of the <a href ="http://www.empireonline.com/100-greatest-movie-characters/default.asp?c=71">100 Greatest Movies characters</a> of all time saying "It takes more than an eye-patch to make an icon, something John Carpenter and eternal muse Kurt Russell understood all too well when creating Snake Plissken. But it sure does help. As does nicking a horde of characteristics from great movie tough guys - Eastwood's voice, Marvin's pissed-off attitude - and blending it with Russell's natural charisma. The result? A true one-off: a cranky, hard-as-nails, nihilistic badass that nobody in their right mind would mess with. But we'd heard he was dead."<br />
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I really don't think there is anything in this movie that is disappointing. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 82% and IMDB gives it a 7.1 rating. <br />
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<br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-48818890327140945462011-03-06T15:03:00.002-08:002013-01-18T06:18:47.519-08:0073. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKYu-dsvwjpjNoxjxMpG8Djrb2YbCEu8ima4fqgfHBJVGZHYTIDb4Y_2F3Uy9sDqt5Xy5CTrTKulZt1__04rzQNi1hd2oCn8p2Vu9H6NDPRQTS26uxjZuzjDLPMJsCzzhhzgFcV2a_FwpF/s1600/kill.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKYu-dsvwjpjNoxjxMpG8Djrb2YbCEu8ima4fqgfHBJVGZHYTIDb4Y_2F3Uy9sDqt5Xy5CTrTKulZt1__04rzQNi1hd2oCn8p2Vu9H6NDPRQTS26uxjZuzjDLPMJsCzzhhzgFcV2a_FwpF/s400/kill.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581119372445066594" /></a><br />
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Roger <a href ="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20011111/REVIEWS/60103002/1023">reviewed</a> this great movie in 2001. he said in his review :<br />
<blockquote><em>To Kill a Mockingbird </em>is, as I said, a time capsule. It expresses the liberal pieties of a more innocent time, the early 1960s, and it goes very easy on the realities of small-town Alabama in the 1930s. One of the most dramatic scenes shows a lynch mob facing Atticus, who is all by himself on the jailhouse steps the night before Tom Robinson's trial. The mob is armed and prepared to break in and hang Robinson, but Scout bursts onto the scene, recognizes a poor farmer who has been befriended by her father, and shames him (and all the other men) into leaving. Her speech is a calculated strategic exercise, masked as the innocent words of a child; one shot of her eyes shows she realizes exactly what she's doing. Could a child turn away a lynch mob at that time, in that place? Isn't it nice to think so. </blockquote><br />
I think Roger is missing the point of this movie's greatness. Atticus Finch was not a naive man. He knew what the beliefs of most people were at that time in the South, but he had to follow what he knew was right in his heart. He was not a person that followed the mob just to be popular, even though it would have made his life a lot easier. <br />
<em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em> was a very brave movie. The film portrayed the racism that was still a powerful factor in the South, almost one hundred years after the Civil War. The movie also demonstrated what the correct response to racism should be. Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center said of the story "Set in the Deep South in the 1930s, the poignant story of racial injustice remains timeless. Its influence on my decision to take up civil rights law was profound." He goes on to say "The small-town life that Harper Lee wrote about in <em>Mockingbird</em> may be fading away, but many of the attitudes about race live on. Just as importantly, the deep, underlying structures of racism in our country have not been eliminated. On the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s classic, we must dedicate ourselves to the work that remains to be done."<br />
I'm stunned that Roger only gave this great movie, with it's great lessons and great morals, two and a half stars. To say that this is a movie that should not be seen is incredible to me. <br />
To criticize this great movie because "it goes very easy on the realities of small-town Alabama in the 1930s" and to add <em>Gone with the Wind </em>to his Great Movies List just doesn't make any sense. In <em>Gone with the Wind</em>, Big Sam said "Goodbye Miss Scarlett. Don't worry. We stop them Yankees." Talk about going easy on the South! The message of <em>Gone with the Wind </em>was very clear. The people in the South in 1860 and in 1939, were very happy and content with the way things were. They didn't need people from outside telling them that their peculiar institutions were wrong. Atticus Finch was a person who was willing to stand up, even though he was from the South, and do the right thing even if it was unpopular.<br />
<blockquote>Atticus Finch: There are some things that you're not old enough to understand just yet. There's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man. <br />
Scout: If you shouldn't be defending him, then why are you doing it? <br />
Atticus Finch: For a number of reasons. The main one is that if I didn't, I couldn't hold my head up in town. I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do somethin' again.</blockquote><br />
<i>Gone with the Wind</i> is a movie that supported racism and the status quo. <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> is a movie that takes a stand against racism. The most important message in <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em> is that we have an obligation to do what we know is right in our heart, even if it isn't popular with the people around us.<br />
Roger says in his Great Movies <a href ="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980621/REVIEWS08/401010323/1023">review</a> of <i>Gone with the Wind</i> :<br />
<blockquote>Remember that when <em>GWTW</em> was made, segregation was still the law in the South and the reality in the North. That the Ku Klux Klan was written out of one scene for fear of giving offense to elected officials who belonged to it. The movie comes from a world with values and assumptions fundamentally different from our own--and yet, of course, so does all great classic fiction, starting with Homer and Shakespeare. A politically correct <em>GWTW</em> would not be worth making, and might largely be a lie.</blockquote><br />
I can't believe that Roger will give <em>GWTW</em>, a movie that revels in its racism, a pass and take <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em> to task for going "very easy on the realities of small-town Alabama." <br />
Atticus Finch was voted as the top screen hero of the last 100 years by the American Film Institute. The movie was ranked #2 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time and AFI ranked it as the #25 Greatest Movie of All Time. It's a movie that should be respected and is very easy to love.<br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/k8TgqenWW0I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-15922660661535895122011-03-01T13:22:00.001-08:002012-05-02T14:26:18.189-07:0072. Indecent Proposal (1993)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaeSxO7PxiWaPVwVuFMCSdyXV4iDna5H1ak-QYKuvABaEK3oTizb8EgVLCm49cXMz07S-8EwnNGNJJxypjkFqWdrA0YkinGaq9FME2KEuCSFTdS-SPgP2XcgbaT8X3vN0grIe73-4X2sWI/s1600/indecent.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaeSxO7PxiWaPVwVuFMCSdyXV4iDna5H1ak-QYKuvABaEK3oTizb8EgVLCm49cXMz07S-8EwnNGNJJxypjkFqWdrA0YkinGaq9FME2KEuCSFTdS-SPgP2XcgbaT8X3vN0grIe73-4X2sWI/s400/indecent.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5579233441153638066" /></a><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
<img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/three.gif" /><br />
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Should be : <br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;"><br />
David (Woody Harrelson) and Diana (Demi Moore) are a young professional couple and are doing really well, until the recession hit. Because they had invested their money in building a dream house they ended up losing everything.<br />
David borrowed some money from his Dad, and went to Vegas but they didn't win. Billionaire John Gage (Robert Redford) sees Demi and asks Diana to sit in at his table for luck. Oh course, his luck turns and they win big. Gage buys her expensive gifts and soon they are going to his parties. The creep, Gage, hypothetically offers David one million dollars for one night with Diana. They refuse him but then can't get the offer out of their heads. <br />
David calls his lawyer who draws up a contract and Diana and Gage get together. David soon changes his mind and goes banging on Gage's door, but they are gone, off on a helicopter.<br />
In his <a href ="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930407/REVIEWS/304070301/1023">review</a> Roger said "<em>Indecent Proposal </em>is in a very old tradition, in which love is put to the test of need and desire and triumphs in the end, although not without a great many moments when it seems quite willing to cave in to passion. It is artificial and manipulative, and in the real world this sort of thing would never happen in this way, but then that's why we line up at the ticket window: We want to leave the real world, for a couple of hours, anyway."<br />
I thought the movie was very far from being in the old tradition. I found it to be crass, shallow, and offensive. This was definitely not <em>An Affair To Remember</em>. <br />
In another <a href ="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930425/COMMENTARY/44010320">review</a> of the movie Roger said "Sometimes when people are talking about certain old movies, they get a little smile on their face, and you realize they are recollecting a guilty pleasure. They know the movie wasn't any masterpiece, and they probably even know why. But dammit all, for two hours it created a fantasy which absorbed them, and allowed them dreams and reveries, fantasies and even lust, and so it has become a pleasant part of their memories. <em>Indecent Proposal </em>is that kind of movie. Goodness has nothing to do with it."<br />
I have to agree that goodness has nothing to do with this movie. It was a long, long two hours for me : certainly no fantasy. Robert Redford acted in forty movies and this one was his lowest rated on IMDB. It won the Razzie Awards for Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay and Worst Supporting Actor. It was also nominated for, but somehow didn't win, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director and Worst Original Song. <br />
It has a 5.4 rating on IMDB, a 37% rating on RottenTomatoes and a 35 rating on Metacritics.<br />
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<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Th-5w26U8-w?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-59290890539287918012011-02-26T17:54:00.003-08:002012-02-27T14:51:07.707-08:0071. Congo (1995)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7dR2xfI-ADSfXsrLJMB4qKvNkMbz346Ds47An45jANAK_thti2e9CakRq98bez4lbf8pi85VM2FmHZI9zswWN1mVFUYrk_HQzrV65zFt4NwMzsaUUSfkbBURVcuWxA8rZvEaR87Yi50nE/s1600/congo.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7dR2xfI-ADSfXsrLJMB4qKvNkMbz346Ds47An45jANAK_thti2e9CakRq98bez4lbf8pi85VM2FmHZI9zswWN1mVFUYrk_HQzrV65zFt4NwMzsaUUSfkbBURVcuWxA8rZvEaR87Yi50nE/s400/congo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578184039821781298" /></a><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
<img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/three.gif" /><br />
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Should be : <br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;"><br />
In his <a href ="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19950609/REVIEWS/506090301/1023">review</a> Roger said "<em>Congo</em> is a splendid example of a genre no longer much in fashion, the jungle adventure story. Perhaps aware that its material was already dated when Stewart Granger made <em>King Solomon's Mines </em>in 1950, the filmmakers have cheerfully turned it into an action comedy, and the actors have gone a step further, treating it like one of those movies like <em>Beat the Devil </em>that is a put-on of itself. The result is not a movie that is very good, exactly, but it's entertaining and funny. False sophisticates will scorn it. Real sophisticates will relish it."<br />
I guess I am a false sophisticate. I just didn't get this movie. A talking gorilla, named Amy, and everyone is interested in finding diamonds to make lasers? Why isn't everyone more interested in Amy?<br />
Roger closed his review with "The movie was directed by Frank Marshall, who has worked with Steven Spielberg on his action extravaganzas, and is based on a novel by Michael Crichton, who is said to be unhappy about what they've done with his book. Since it is impossible to imagine this material being played for anything but laughs, maybe he should be grateful." <br />
I don't think the movie was meant to be funny. It is listed as a Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but not as a comedy. If the movie really was a comedy/drama why wouldn't the people behind the movie let people in on the secret?<br />
When I recently watched this movie again I watched it carefully to see if was actually being played for laughs. I don't think it was. I just think it was a bad movie with bad acting, bad special effects and bad writing. <br />
The movie was nominated for seven Razzies, including Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Original Song. It has a 4.6 rating on IMDB, a 21% rating on RottenTomatoes and one positive review on Metacritic - Roger's.<br />
This is one of those movies that is so bad it just might be fun to watch, but believe me when I tell you, it was no fun for me.<br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vgxdUHWjtKE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
Gene Siskel on <i>Congo</i><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/icu59hembVk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-27150856928222235882011-02-25T05:59:00.001-08:002012-05-02T14:31:59.092-07:0074. She Hate Me (2004)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIxZsM2JedRFZqbt51tZuTgjo2XVPq9Mx7ZTSCLmmZhCk-KOdkouR-kbrkNNxK9XPfmmHnq6sT9uVXEwFuS73gX_h0Of3GCNRv6LyHnho_lKhkzgYH3tCbjtEBK4Hu2XzK-4_fc5SOpzdS/s1600/she.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIxZsM2JedRFZqbt51tZuTgjo2XVPq9Mx7ZTSCLmmZhCk-KOdkouR-kbrkNNxK9XPfmmHnq6sT9uVXEwFuS73gX_h0Of3GCNRv6LyHnho_lKhkzgYH3tCbjtEBK4Hu2XzK-4_fc5SOpzdS/s400/she.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581852286050777250" /></a><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
<img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/three.gif" /><br />
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Should be : <br />
<img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/one.gif" /><br />
<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;"><br />
If this movie could talk it would say "She hate me, he hate me, they hate me, everyone hate me except Roger, who gave me 3 stars."<br />
In his <a href ="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040806/REVIEWS/408060304/1023">review</a> Roger said <br />
<blockquote>Spike Lee's <em>She Hate Me </em>will get some terrible reviews. Scorched earth reviews. Its logic, style, presumption and sexual politics will be ridiculed. The Tomatometer will be down around 20. Many of the things you read in those reviews may be true from a conventional point of view. Most of the critics will be on safe ground. I will seem to be wrong. Seeming to be wrong about this movie is one of the most interesting things I've done recently. I've learned from it.<br />
My guess is that Lee is attacking African-American male and gay/lesbian stereotypes not by conventionally preaching against them, but by boldly dramatizing them. The inspiration for <em>She Hate Me </em>may be his <em>Bamboozled </em>(2000), an attack on black stereotypes that was one of his least successful films. Having failed with a frontal assault, he returns to the battle using indirection. By getting mad at the movie, we arrive at the conclusions he intends. In a sense, he is sacrificing himself to get his message across.<br />
Either that, or I have completely misread <em>She Hate Me</em>, but I couldn't write the obvious review. I couldn't convince myself I believed it. This film is alive and confrontational and aggressively in our face, and the man who made it has abandoned all caution, even to the point of refusing to signal his intentions, to put in a wink to let us see he knows what he's doing.</blockquote><br />
I'm a big fan of Spike Lee, <em>Malcolm X</em> and <em>Do the Right Thing </em>are two of my favorite movies of all time, but this movie was not good. Roger is hoping desperately that there is something clever in the movie, but even he can't find it.<br />
I think Roger hit it on the head on his <em>At the Movies </em>show. He said "It has enough imaginations and material for three movies, and that becomes a problem since it can't decide which of the three movies it wants to be." Ebert and Roeper's dialogue continues :<br />
<blockquote>Ebert : "She hate me is preposterous, the critics are likely to hate it, but I give Spike Lee credit for being provocative, outrageous and daring in a world of timid and conventional movies, he swings for the fences. I went back and forth and back and forth, on this ... I'm going to give it thumbs up because it was never .."<br />
Roeper : "Wow! Wow!" <br />
Ebert "never boring. It was always intelligent in its film ideas even if the plot absolutely fell to pieces."<br />
Roeper : "Roger this movie was never intelligent from the get-go. I give this movie a big thumbs down and I think it may be the worst movie of the year. I mean first of all, if anybody else made a movie about this black male stud, Spike Lee would be ripping them for trafficking in such obvious stereotypes. Is it supposed to be a parody of stereotypes?"<br />
Ebert : "I think so."<br />
Roeper : " It's just insanely outlandish. None of that stuff has any connection to any real world possibilities that you could ever, ever."<br />
Ebert : "Were you bored during this movie?"<br />
Roeper : "I was amazed, astonished.. that I was seeing such garbage on the screen. The acting is horrible. The music is intrusive and you know there's this whole plot where he's getting in trouble ... this movie knows nothing about an investigation into financial misdeeds. The stuff with the Mafia is third-rate stereotypes of Italians.<br />
Ebert : "You know it's funny, this kind of movie is a real test for a film critic and it was a real test for me because intellectually I know everything you say is true. You're right - it's preposterous. I know that. Yet at the same time he keeps doing stuff. ... This movie is really trying to something in many different ways at the same time and even though it doesn't work it fails, fails in a very interesting and stimulating way and I didn't feel as if I resented losing my two hours."<br />
Roeper : "I guess on one level I can understand what you're saying because I would say to some people you got to see this because it's such a train wreck that you won't believe it but I would say maybe people could wait to rent it to see what I mean. I think it's one of the worst movies of the year."</blockquote><br />
This was a movie that was supposed to be a comedy, but I don't think there was one funny minute in it. I agree with Roger that it was preposterous and didn't know what kind of movie it wanted to be. Offensive? Racist? Misogynistic? Homophobic? In my view, yes on all counts. <br />
I'm going to agree with Richard Roeper on this one. Only see it if you enjoy watching train wrecks.<br />
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<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EiYKdK46L5s?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-8613110999632100962011-02-23T13:12:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:51:44.823-08:0070. Gigli (2003)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWdD2DEw7rvYeh04MEZd_r8jvgPndoBKTogtJ75QX-mAQoaab-6jn1osfxuRgqEZ3VbSk-TNX9bae-k2zvfKoRfHbwrQHBF807628F-luCo7N6iQGrrGPEbWFjo1jir8nEVtKc5uik3f9/s1600/gigli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWdD2DEw7rvYeh04MEZd_r8jvgPndoBKTogtJ75QX-mAQoaab-6jn1osfxuRgqEZ3VbSk-TNX9bae-k2zvfKoRfHbwrQHBF807628F-luCo7N6iQGrrGPEbWFjo1jir8nEVtKc5uik3f9/s400/gigli.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Roger's Rating :<br />
<img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/twohalf.gif" /><br />
<br />
Should be : Zero stars<br />
<br />
<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">The movie starts out with hitman Larry Gigli, played by Ben Affleck taking a handicapped boy for a ride. It looked like it was going to be a remake of <i>Rain Man</i> and then J-Lo stops over the apartment to borrow the phone. It turns out the J-Lo is a hitwoman, sent to check up on Gigli. What follows is some of the most embarrassing dialogue in one of the worst plots of all time. It does have J-Lo, and the camera does love her, but that is about all this turkey has going for it.<br />
Roger says in his bizarre <a href ="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030801/REVIEWS/308010303/1023">review</a> :<br />
<blockquote>The movie tries to do something different, thoughtful, and a little daring with their relationship, and although it doesn't quite work, maybe the movie is worth seeing for some scenes that are really very good. Consider the matching monologues. They've gotten into an argument over the necessity of the penis, which she, as a lesbian, feels is an inferior device for delivering sexual pleasure. He delivers an extended lecture on the use, necessity and perfect design of the appendage. It is a rather amazing speech, the sort of thing some moviegoers are probably going to want to memorize. Then she responds. She is backlit, dressed in skintight workout clothes, doing yoga, and she continues to stretch and extend and bend and pose as she responds with her speech in praise of the vagina. When she is finished, Reader, the vagina has won, hands down. It is so rare to find dialogue of such originality and wit, so well written, that even though we know the exchange basically involves actors showing off, they do it so well, we let them.</blockquote>Roger goes on to say : <br />
<blockquote>So the movie doesn't work. The ending especially doesn't work, and what's worse, it doesn't work for a long time, because it fails to work for minute after minute, and includes dialogue which is almost entirely unnecessary. But there is good stuff here. Affleck and Lopez create lovely characters, even if they're not the ones they're allegedly playing, and the supporting performances and a lot of the dialogue is wonderful. It's just that there's too much time between the good scenes. Too much repetitive dialogue. Too many soulful looks. Behavior we can't believe. I wonder what would happen if you sweated 15 minutes out of this movie. Maybe it would work. The materials are there.</blockquote>Wow! "<b>It is so rare to find dialogue of such originality and wit, so well written</b>"!! On Metacritics, out of the 37 reviews there is only one that is positive - Roger's.<br />
The director/writer Martin Brest won Razzies for Worst Director and Worst Screenplay for this movie. This is a movie that has a 7% rating on RottenTomatoes and a 2.4 rating on IMDB. I don't think that sweating 15 minutes out of it is going to help.</div><br />
<div><br />
<u>Ebert and Roeper Dialogue on <em>Gigli</em></u><br />
<blockquote style ="font-size : 11pt"><br />
Ebert "<em>Gigli</em> is filled with enormous lapses in common sense. <em>Gigli</em> makes a commendable effort though, to avoid cliches in the relationship between Affleck and J-Lo, and some of the conversations between the straight guy and the lesbian woman are very well written. J-Lo and Affleck deliver brilliant dissertations, for example, on their favorite sexual organs. I never, however, for a moment believed they were mob killers but I liked whoever it was they were playing although the movie is too disorganized for me to recommend it."<br />
<br />
Roeper : "Oh, you are being far too kind to this utter disaster."<br />
<br />
Ebert : "No, not at all. Not a disaster."<br />
<br />
Roeper : "First of all, I can't believe that you are saying that there are some nicely written parts here, because I think the script is a disaster."<br />
<br />
Ebert : "Their matching monologues. What about the matching monologues?"<br />
<br />
Roeper : "I hated their matching monologues."<br />
<br />
Ebert : "I loved it. Well written"<br />
<br />
Roeper : "I cringed as I was watching it. J-Lo also speaks some of the most degrading monologue that I have ever heard a major female star ever have to utter. She tries to explain why she prefers women over men. And you're right, they are the two most least believable assassins of all time."<br />
<br />
Ebert : "I'll tell you something. In the age of <i>Sex and the City</i>, I know exactly the word that you are referring to that she says and I believe that someone in that situation would say something just about like that."<br />
<br />
Roeper : "Nobody will ever be in the situation that these two characters are in, in this movie and also this character of the brother, I'm sorry, it's a horrible Dustin Hoffman imitation."<br />
<br />
Ebert : "Oh, I didn't like that."<br />
<br />
Roeper : "The ending is a howling horrible way to complete this mess. I mean they are stuck with such a mess here."<br />
<br />
Ebert : "Well my thumb is down but I still like the dialogue but I agree with you about the retarded brother who is so handy, he always disappears when he's not needed. Turns up, does everything on cue. He just like a little well trained prop."<br />
<br />
Roeper : "I think it's absolutely one of the worst movies of the year. One of the worst movies I've ever seen."<br />
</blockquote><br />
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<embed src="http://www.videohippy.com/player.swf" width="555" height="431" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="width=555&height=431&file=http://www.videohippy.com/flvideos/../flvideo/43893.flv&image=http://www.videohippy.com/thumb/1_43893.jpg&displayheight=270&link=http://www.videohippy.com/video/43893/Ebert--Roeper--Gigli-2003&searchbar=false&linkfromdisplay=true&recommendations=http://www.videohippy.com/feed_embed.php?v=qwVVdbhBU4o&feature=" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /><br />
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<a href ="http://www.videohippy.com/video/43893/Ebert--Roeper--Gigli-2003">Watch Ebert Review Here</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-49095512206185877132011-02-22T12:29:00.000-08:002011-04-09T13:55:23.084-07:0069. The Fighter (2010)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivuQt6SHf40gGvkIGQWgZyMh0ba9oW0vX8Suus70EhInPRbOrk6fZOWNzvAgqxIMOfoq4asepig7VN1Y5118TQZw6wjNTfG9NQD7BiS5XErfkN0fRPHOjKerjkIlQrEvMtJ3RNbFeIsw6m/s1600/fighter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivuQt6SHf40gGvkIGQWgZyMh0ba9oW0vX8Suus70EhInPRbOrk6fZOWNzvAgqxIMOfoq4asepig7VN1Y5118TQZw6wjNTfG9NQD7BiS5XErfkN0fRPHOjKerjkIlQrEvMtJ3RNbFeIsw6m/s400/fighter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />Roger's Rating :<br /><img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/twohalf.gif" /><br /><br />Should be :<br /><img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/four.gif" /><br /><br /><div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">I'm not a big fight fan. I think it is a brutal sport and I find it hard to watch, but I loved <i>The Fighter</i>. The movie worked for me on many levels. It had some tremendous acting. Christian Bale's performance was brilliant. Melissa Leo, Amy Adams and Mark Wahlberg were also all really good. The movie is well worth seeing just for the performances alone.<br />I also thought the movie was an excellent fight film. I thought the fight scenes were really well done, and really brought home the pain and brutality that takes place in the ring. The movie was also effective in showing the devastation that drugs can have on one's life. Dicky was a character who had hit rock bottom because of his drug fueled life style.<br />Roger says in his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101215/REVIEWS/101219988/-1/RSS">review</a> "The weakness of the film is the weakness of the leading role. That's not a criticism of Mark Wahlberg, who has a quite capable range, but of how he and Russell see the character. Micky comes across as a proud, not very bright, very determined man who has apparently never given his family much constructive thought. To say of your family, 'they're my family!' is true enough, but may not be sufficiently analytical. His love for Charlene is real, but he never quite realizes he really must choose between her vision and his mother's. His character remains strangely unfocused."<br />I disagree with Roger since the movie was based on a true story. To say a character should have acted another way doesn't make any sense if that is not the way the real person acted. Micky is a character who tries to please everyone around him. His older brother is his hero and his mother is a dominating figure in the lives of everyone in her sphere.<br />Roger finishes his review by saying "There are a lot of fight scenes, not as visceral as those in <i>Raging Bull</i>, <i>Rocky</i> or <i>The Wrestler</i>, but designed more to represent the POV of a sportswriter or fan. Because we aren't deeply invested in Micky, we don't care as much as we should, and the film ends on a note that should be triumph but feels more like simple conclusion." <br />It's funny, because I felt exactly the opposite. I really felt connected to this character, who was so anxious to please everyone, and was used by all those around him as they tried to realize their dreams through him. <br />The film received 7 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best original Screenplay along with 3 acting nominations for Bale, Adams and Leo. <i>Sports Illustrated </i>dubbed the film the best sports movie of the decade and "one of the best since Martin Scorsese backlit Robert De Niro's Jake LaMotta in <i>Raging Bull</i>." It has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.1 rating on IMDB.<br /><br /></div><hr /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Hwv7kT9P0mg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-8979374293052439032011-02-08T15:18:00.001-08:002012-05-02T14:35:42.524-07:0068. The Manhattan Project (1986)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5u2VqHcqNZpy44QqobLEwoo9sM-1WixyoHsPXVvQc6NurZD1Nkai48_ryAULG2pXUI3Nj1Ef5IG7VTdqDLy0PP8zmZ5nt4_ztwSyAEgMvExmsnC8U5D_EVhusyIf8OgMpMd9xAtqj4Pr/s1600/man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5u2VqHcqNZpy44QqobLEwoo9sM-1WixyoHsPXVvQc6NurZD1Nkai48_ryAULG2pXUI3Nj1Ef5IG7VTdqDLy0PP8zmZ5nt4_ztwSyAEgMvExmsnC8U5D_EVhusyIf8OgMpMd9xAtqj4Pr/s320/man.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">The Rotten Tomatoes synopsis says "Directed and cowritten by Woody Allen collaborator Marshall Brickman, this comedy-thriller doesn't seem to know where it wants to go or what it wants to say (other than, obviously, nuclear weapons are scary things). Christopher Collet plays an overachieving high school student who decides to show just how dangerously easy it is to construct a nuclear device. He builds one for his science fair, using his mother's relationship with a government official (John Lithgow) to sneak into a secret facility and steal plutonium. When the feds find out what's going on, they overreact in a brutish showdown that threatens nuclear annihilation of everyone within a 10-mile radius. While the movie makes some antinuke points and features a strong performance by Lithgow, it seems a little too breezy, given what's going on."<br />
The main problem with the movie is that it is slow moving and the kid who is supposed to be the hero, is a brat who is hard to cheer for. Marshall Brickman, who wrote <i>Manhattan</i> and <i>Annie Hall</i>, didn't do so as well when he tried to write for the teenage set. This movie was no where near as good as a similarly themed movie, <i>War Games (1983)</i>, which was made just a few years earlier. <br />
In his review Roger said "<i>The Manhattan Project </i>was co-written and directed by Marshall Brickman, the sometime Woody Allen collaborator (<i>Annie Hall</i>, <i>Manhatta</i>n) whose own films include <i>Lovesick</i> and <i>Simon</i>. This movie announces his arrival into the first ranks of skilled American directors.<br />
It's a tour de force, the way he combines everyday personality conflicts with a funny, oddball style of seeing things, and wraps up the whole package into a tense and effective thriller. It's not often that one movie contains so many different kinds of pleasures." <br />
This is usually the kind of movie that is right up my alley, but for me this one went right to the gutter. On IMDB it has a 5.9 and Rotten Tomatoes it has a 47% rating.<br />
By the way, the highly skilled director, who just joined the first ranks, only directed one more movie fifteen years later, <i>Sister Mary Explains It All </i>(2001). I don't think that one was too good either.<br />
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<hr /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-7092751739933457272011-01-30T14:43:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:52:36.583-08:0067. Death at a Funeral (2010)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfe1TlJ_Au7JBapiSWVJL1F3R4RQa0zZjSJQ2A_zytbLkbc43w8OwI78T2JiZiNhcAengvy20EzoZh0fwY8CGDDvmTI8GTPHN_8dUtRPnfmRs30YI2L2g7yrCOE8mHGT6Sx2K_-3m5gtvq/s1600/death.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfe1TlJ_Au7JBapiSWVJL1F3R4RQa0zZjSJQ2A_zytbLkbc43w8OwI78T2JiZiNhcAengvy20EzoZh0fwY8CGDDvmTI8GTPHN_8dUtRPnfmRs30YI2L2g7yrCOE8mHGT6Sx2K_-3m5gtvq/s400/death.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">Danny Glover, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Chris Rock, Luke Wilson ... in a comedy, it should have been good with that cast, but it wasn't. It was kind of frustrating to see all that talent assembled without really having anything for them to do. <br />
In his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100414/REVIEWS/100419974">review</a> Roger said "Oh, I know a lot of <i>Death at a Funeral </i>is in very bad taste. That's when I laughed the most. I don't laugh at movies where the characters are deliberately being vulgar. But when they desperately don't want to be--now that's funny. Consider the scene when Uncle Russell eats too much nut cake and is seized by diarrhea. And Norman wrestles him off his wheelchair and onto the potty, and gets his hand stuck underneath. Reader, I laughed. I'm not saying I'm proud of myself. That's not the way I was raised. But I laughed."<br />
He went on to say "I laughed all the way through, in fact. This is the best comedy since <i>The Hangover</i>, and although it's almost a scene-by-scene remake of a 2007 British movie with the same title, it's funnier than the original." (the British version has 7.3 rating on IMDB). <br />
I enjoyed seeing the great talent that was on the screen but they were let down by the writing. It just wasn't that funny. Most of the humor centered around the dead father having been gay, on the "down-low" or juvenile bathroom humor. It really just wasn't that funny. Richard Roeper, in his review, said "The stellar cast is wasted on scatological humor, running jokes that are run straight into the ground, and corpse-centered slapstick that's less inspired than <i>Weekend at Bernie's</i>.<br />
Roger seems to like director Neil LaBute. He gave the very mediocre <i>Lakeview Terrace</i>, which has a 6.3 rating on IMDB, 4 stars. <br />
<i>Death at a Funeral </i>has a 5.3 on IMDB and a 40% rating with the critics on Rotten Tomatoes.</div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LkbR3nQqcrk?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-51177511038843381572011-01-30T11:17:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:52:50.411-08:0066. An American Werewolf in London (1981)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGL0TaX4o0zwFDfDjv_R4-cphQ-C-0AuThhSlhJp_n3yyEnMmX2LzR0uMKIXZgPuOC6zICiUyRnMdhLg0kMuiF4y04ThsoxTOGjSow7bFgYCLbEcQteOM9Qke3_pMeuEgifkYu1JX4GxN/s1600/were.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGL0TaX4o0zwFDfDjv_R4-cphQ-C-0AuThhSlhJp_n3yyEnMmX2LzR0uMKIXZgPuOC6zICiUyRnMdhLg0kMuiF4y04ThsoxTOGjSow7bFgYCLbEcQteOM9Qke3_pMeuEgifkYu1JX4GxN/s400/were.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">Two young American students, David and Jack, are walking Great Britain and they end up in a pub, The Slaughtered Lamb, where the locals try to warn them about going out at night.<br />
When they do go out they are attacked by a wolf, Jack is killed and David is wounded. David begins to have weird dreams. He is stalking a deer and the eating it raw. Nazi zombies are attacking his family and his nurse. The light tone the movie started with is gone and things are starting to get scary. Then Jack appears and warns David about the werewolf curse. The last remaining werewolf, David, must be killed or Jack has to walk the earth. Jack warns David that he will turn into a werewolf and kill others. He tells him to beware of the moon. David thinks Jack's appearance was another dream.<br />
In his review Roger says "<em>An American Werewolf in London</em> seems curiously unfinished, as if director John Landis spent all his energy on spectacular set pieces and then didn't want to bother with things like transitions, character development, or an ending. The movie has sequences that are spellbinding, and then long stretches when nobody seems sure what's going on. There are times when the special effects almost wipe the characters off the screen. It's weird. It's not a very good film, and it falls well below Landis's work in the anarchic <i>National Lampoon's Animal House </i>and the rambunctious <i>The Blues Brothers</i>. Landis never seems very sure whether he's making a comedy or a horror film, so he winds up with genuinely funny moments acting as counterpoint to the gruesome undead. Combining horror and comedy is an old tradition (my favorite example is <i>Bride of Frankenstein</i>), but the laughs and the blood coexist very uneasily in this film."<br />
Combining horror and comedy is a hard thing to do, but I think this movie does it very well. The horror scenes, the witty dialogue, the moon themed music, the tremendous Oscar winning special effects - they all work for me.<br />
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<blockquote>Did you ever see <em>The Wolf Man</em>?<br />
Is that the one with Oliver Reed?<br />
No, the old one.<br />
I don't think so. <br />
Bela Lugosi bites Lon Chaney Jr and he turns into a werewolf.<br />
Why are you telling me this?<br />
No, listen. <br />
Claude Rains is Lon Chaney's father, and he ends up killing him.<br />
So?<br />
Well, I think that a werewolf can only be killed by someone who loves them.</blockquote>Some really good comedy scenes and some really good horror scenes. It isn't as good as the <em>Bride of Frankenstein</em>, but it is still very good.<br />
It has a 7.5 rating on IMDB and an 88% rating with the critics on Rotten Tomatoes.</div><br />
<hr /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0qSnlnatXVM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-81935256637503754232011-01-29T17:29:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:53:05.259-08:0065. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtwKg2CzC2_XBXU4Aa4vaG_r_E-FVeI9QkIwap3UegJP-exR5V-S0N5fZS6ivycRSFjtZx3N1CkFb2HnVQcdkcE6SFcv38djIfnFd1Jh5Ege3Ufs_P8VyTBRaLmEgvwovGnJOUjpB8Q8Ll/s1600/private.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtwKg2CzC2_XBXU4Aa4vaG_r_E-FVeI9QkIwap3UegJP-exR5V-S0N5fZS6ivycRSFjtZx3N1CkFb2HnVQcdkcE6SFcv38djIfnFd1Jh5Ege3Ufs_P8VyTBRaLmEgvwovGnJOUjpB8Q8Ll/s400/private.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">I've always loved the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes' movies. I also really liked this film that has to be the best of all the Sherlock Holmes movies. Directed by the great Billy Wilder, this movie brings us the iconic Holmes, playing the violin, smoking his pipe and reaching for his needle in times of pain and boredom. It showed the private life of Holmes, the life that didn’t make it into the pages of Strand magazine.<br />
It showed a Holmes who was human, but it also remained faithful to the Arthur Conan Doyle character. It showed us a Holmes who had been disappointed in love. He says to Watson, “You’ve given the reader the distinct impression that I am a misogynist. Actually, I don’t dislike women, I merely distrust them.”<br />
The movie had an interesting, twisting plot with a nice part for Christopher Lee as Mycroft Holmes. It also had midgets, canaries, monks, the Queen and the Loch Ness monster.<br />
But most interestingly it had an vulnerable Holmes, outsmarted by a woman who he seems to fall in love with.<br />
Roger didn't love the movie. He said "But before the movie is 20 minutes old, Wilder has settled for simply telling a Sherlock Holmes adventure." <br />
Roger goes on to say "The same kind of obviousness takes the fun out of <i>The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i>, and that's a shame. The Holmes character, creeping around with his magnifying glass and (Watson tells us at the film's beginning) identifying a murderer by measuring the extent to which the parsley had sunk into the butter on a warm summer day, is a promising subject for the kind of satirical examination we expect from Wilder and his frequent co-author, I. A. L. Diamond. But they pass up the chance and bore us while Holmes laboriously unravels a case involving the midget acrobats, a missing husband, Trappist monks, the Loch Ness monster, dead canaries and a copper ring that has turned green. It takes Holmes about half an hour longer to solve the case than it takes us, and poor Watson never catches on."<br />
I have to admit that when I first watched this movie I was like Watson, I really had no idea what was going on. I thought the movie worked as a mystery, a comedy, an adventure and as a Sherlock Holmes movie.<br />
On IMDB it has a 7.3 rating and on Rotten Tomatoes it has a 95% rating. Only one critic out of 21 gave it a negative review - Roger.</div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MF6S6W9w98s?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-66746022278286716612011-01-28T14:17:00.002-08:002012-02-27T14:53:40.547-08:0064. Papillon (1973)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD8g2QoiSeySxFZHlGNPtle2oTVtNkpveoGgagEOZ_PjUBJrqQNXizMrKHiMsP0uIFZ-ZzIuQ-27sVqUrpgzWGWNZZx97VFTfwUr9LGUQCADa7nCjV-KZZZtW-tncESGg46GBnS9KLCbTB/s1600/pap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD8g2QoiSeySxFZHlGNPtle2oTVtNkpveoGgagEOZ_PjUBJrqQNXizMrKHiMsP0uIFZ-ZzIuQ-27sVqUrpgzWGWNZZx97VFTfwUr9LGUQCADa7nCjV-KZZZtW-tncESGg46GBnS9KLCbTB/s400/pap.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">The Rotten Tomatoes synopses on this great movie says "Franklin J. Schaffner (<i>Patton</i>) directs this true story of Henri Charriere (better known as <i>Papillo</i> or "the butterfly"), a prisoner so determined to escape the notorious Devil's Island, he attempted it multiple times until he reached old age. Steve McQueen plays Charriere, and Dustin Hoffman is very good as the hero's anxious, defenseless friend. Based on Charriere's own memoir and uncompromisingly adapted by screenwriters Dalton Trumbo (<i>Johnny Got His Gun</i>) and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (<i>Three Days of the Condor</i>), the film is tough going (it is set, after all, on Devil's Island) but not gratuitously violent. There are sequences that stay with one for a long time, such as Papillon's brief stay at a leper colony and the long periods of starvation and solitary confinement he endures after each attempted flight."<br />
This is a movie that stays with one for a long time. Just to see two great actors, Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, at the height of their powers, play off each other, makes the movie required viewing.<br />
The movie is long (151 minutes) and at points a little slow, but it is always fascinating. in his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19731216/REVIEWS/301010324/1023">review</a> Roger said "<i>Papillon</i> is a movie like that: an expensive, exhaustive, 150-minute odyssey that doesn't so much conclude as cross the finish line and collapse. It has been outfitted with expensive stars and a glossy production, but it doesn't really make us care. When Steve McQueen finally escapes from Devil's Island we're happy more for ourselves than for him: Finally we can leave, too." <br />
He goes on to say "At some point in the movie's pre-production, the theory apparently was held that we'd get interested in the contrast between Papillon, the man of action, and Dega, the gentle intellectual. The chemistry of McQueen and Hoffman was supposed to help. That was the theory, but in practice, we don't care because the characters never really escape as people. Hoffman is using his limp again from <i>Midnight Cowboy</i>, and McQueen squints into the sun a lot, and that's about it."<br />
Although the movie is a little long, and perhaps a little slow, I thought the acting was tremendous, and the story fascinating. I wish they made more movies like this today.<br />
It has an 8.0 rating on IMDB and a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.</div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/P6MPWDeG3y0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-10904477544342984592011-01-27T15:39:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:53:53.244-08:0063. Star Trek (2009)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1PSUFjz4yCuWbX12urgHQZXRWNaKUSYYmvl8BFoo-njuKuLBWglaphReBUy022s6fH9Isl0mzrhSiD4djQuHSmhBIuWJpw11iNDcNMhNvCkL1alB6QIlQuxrHh68F6DSWcjrc2rSey6xG/s1600/star.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1PSUFjz4yCuWbX12urgHQZXRWNaKUSYYmvl8BFoo-njuKuLBWglaphReBUy022s6fH9Isl0mzrhSiD4djQuHSmhBIuWJpw11iNDcNMhNvCkL1alB6QIlQuxrHh68F6DSWcjrc2rSey6xG/s400/star.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">Roger says in his review "The Gene Roddenberry years, when stories might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy, have been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colorful action. Like so many franchises, it’s more concerned with repeating a successful formula than going boldly where no “Star Trek” has gone before."<br />
He goes on to say "I understand that the character types are as familiar as your favorite slippers. But the franchise has become much of a muchness. The new movie essentially intends to reboot the franchise with younger characters and carry on as before. The movie deals with narrative housekeeping. Perhaps the next one will engage these characters in a more challenging and devious story, one more about testing their personalities than re-establishing them. In the meantime, you want space opera, you got it."<br />
So I guess Roger was disappointed with the story. He wanted some of the freshness and inventiveness of the original shows on TV, but that wasn't what this movie was supposed to be. This movie filled in the early years and showed us how the characters we are so familiar with, came to be who they are. I think the writers knew they were treading on dangerous ground, inventing a past for such beloved characters, and so I think they treaded lightly. And I think, in this case, that was very appropriate.<br />
Colin Covert said "This is really the story of how the Enterprise crew meets, hammers out its differences and becomes a team, and the telling is pure bliss." Joe Morgenstern says "<em>Star Trek</em> goes back to the legend's roots with a boldness that brings a fatigued franchise back to life." Dana Stevens says "Abrams' cannily constructed prequel respects (for the most part) the rules of that world and, more importantly, retains the original Star Trek's spirit of optimism, curiosity, and humor." And Tom Long adds "A film that should appeal to longtime Trekkies, sci-fi neophytes and pretty much anybody who likes a good action flick."<br />
On IMDB this really good movie has a 8.1 rating and on Rotten Tomatoes it comes in with a 94% rating from the critics.</div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HcFLgkCKi1Q?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-18358085061376918682011-01-27T14:32:00.001-08:002012-12-26T13:25:02.920-08:0062. Lara Croft Tomb Raider:The Cradle of Life (2003)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5puFYJNmWlzDP9QvpuzQ2QTiQgVo18Sw43Xfx5hzQyaTlBYsv51YXW0o7AYsZmHrhvVp3i87gGnfiOj4xuSnva-2AhekEwuZIRRAt2C-13DJYF0Un3hNOHVZluEqWnFx2UrDnX6UsSFG7/s1600/cradle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5puFYJNmWlzDP9QvpuzQ2QTiQgVo18Sw43Xfx5hzQyaTlBYsv51YXW0o7AYsZmHrhvVp3i87gGnfiOj4xuSnva-2AhekEwuZIRRAt2C-13DJYF0Un3hNOHVZluEqWnFx2UrDnX6UsSFG7/s400/cradle.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">On Meta-Critics.com Roger had the highest rated reviews for both of the Laura Croft movies. On Meta-Critics Roger also rated Angelina's last 15 movies (since 2000) 21.5 points higher than the other critics!<br />
So there you have it. Stick Angelina in a movie and Roger is going to add a couple of stars to it.<br />
He said of <em>The Cradle of Life</em> in his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030725/REVIEWS/307250302">review</a> "This is a better movie than the first one, more assured, more entertaining. The director is Jan de Bont (<i>Speed</i>), who demands a certain logic from his screenwriters, so that although the story is completely preposterous, of course, it is consistent within its own terms. I was relieved to discover I am not tired of movies like this after all. They have to be good, is the thing!" <br />
I've read what Roger said above several times, but I still don't understand it. Completely preposterous but has a certain logic? <br />
I like Angelina too but I'm not going to watch this movie again to try to find the logic in it. In his review Leonard Maltin said "Astonishingly inept and interminable sequel gives new meaning to the word 'boring'."<br />
This movie has a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the critics and a 5.2 rating on IMDB.</div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lGFPJIc3fWE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-13532666030146234372011-01-27T14:06:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:54:16.208-08:0061. Lara Croft - Tomb Raider (2001)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGv4A6GjAhC-7Av3GgBtotrgsK7HW78qktjhyphenhyphenrv0mgiu2U5LNFnOFakaScZDvty2yn0Ya7Z7CSPm6N7pyLQmP81AbLAbn-h6wUc9933B6Vpq0VHH78QNanUWDcOY5gcKrccpiugyW3DFIW/s1600/lara.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGv4A6GjAhC-7Av3GgBtotrgsK7HW78qktjhyphenhyphenrv0mgiu2U5LNFnOFakaScZDvty2yn0Ya7Z7CSPm6N7pyLQmP81AbLAbn-h6wUc9933B6Vpq0VHH78QNanUWDcOY5gcKrccpiugyW3DFIW/s400/lara.jpg" width="373" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">"<strong>Here is a movie so monumentally silly, yet so wondrous to look at, that only a churl could find fault</strong>." Roger Ebert<br />
<br />
Call me a churl (<i>dictionary.com </i>- a rude, boorish, or surly person).<br />
This is the kind of movie that is right up my alley. Action, adventure with archeology thrown in! The <i>Indiana Jones </i>movies, which this sought to replicate, are some of my favorites, But, this movie was no Indiana Jones.<br />
Roger said in his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20010615/REVIEWS/106150302/1023">review</a> "And please don't tell me it makes no sense. The last thing I want to see is a sensible movie about how the Illuminati will reunite the halves of the severed triangle in order to control time in the ruins of the ancient city that once rose in the meteor crater--if, and it's a big "if," the clue of the All-Seeing Eye inside the hidden clock can be used at the moment of planetary alignment that comes every 5,000 years, and if the Tomb Raiders are not destroyed by the many-armed Vishnu figure and the stone monkeys. The logic is exhausting enough even when it doesn't make sense."<br />
He finishes by saying "Did I enjoy the movie? Yes. Is it up there with the Indiana Jones pictures? No, although its art direction and set design are (especially in the tomb with all the dead roots hanging down like tendrils). Was I filled with suspense? No. Since I had no idea what was going to happen, should happen, shouldn't happen or what it meant if it did happen, I could hardly be expected to care. But did I grin with delight at the absurdity it all? You betcha."<br />
I didn't grin at all as I watched this movie. I don't think Leonard Maltin grinned either. In his review he said "To quote a character in the film itself, 'Enough of this twaddle!'"<br />
I like Angelina Jolie too, but please put her in something decent. This has a 5.4 on IMDB and a 19% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes. </div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4tvZq3w_RQA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-43488713335221743172011-01-27T12:56:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:54:27.205-08:0060. You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ4C03dqhImbEc_GWitBUpX9vHM8z4iT9PqtqAW-w-MRg_RbMR6JtbwJUhyphenhyphenInv1-_ZwfsIRV59IWzale7Ct5EeFWGXNXszHqNEkawfzhfO0ILPEE6DUJM2DBdFdn6CCjYCmKjaB5sHjH6c/s1600/zohan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ4C03dqhImbEc_GWitBUpX9vHM8z4iT9PqtqAW-w-MRg_RbMR6JtbwJUhyphenhyphenInv1-_ZwfsIRV59IWzale7Ct5EeFWGXNXszHqNEkawfzhfO0ILPEE6DUJM2DBdFdn6CCjYCmKjaB5sHjH6c/s400/zohan.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">I like Adam Sandler and I love John Turturro but this movie comes very close to being unwatchable. I wasn't going to see it, but the library had it, and Roger gave it 3 stars. <br />
The movie is about a Mossad agent fakes his death so he can re-emerge in New York City as a hair stylist. His arch-enemy, a Palestinian agent named the Phantom, arrives in New York and their battle continues. <br />
The movie had humor that seven year olds may have found funny, but the material was totally inappropriate for children. So who does that leave to like it? <br />
Roger says in his review :<br />
"Sandler works so hard at this, and so shamelessly, that he battered down my resistance. Like a Jerry Lewis out of control, he will do, and does, anything to get a laugh. No thinking adult should get within a mile of this film. I must not have been thinking. For my sins, I laughed. Sorry. I'll try to do better next time. "<br />
I may be the one who is wrong here because I never got Jerry Lewis either (except in <i>The King of Comedy </i>, where he played himself). IMDB has it at 5.6 and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 36%. </div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ucmnTmYpGhI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-47841608387974301082011-01-27T11:55:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:54:41.206-08:0059. Land of the Lost (2009)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwwyamPQFkE_cxesW0HyxPeELkKxzPNoGztGh5t74oUIpUrvrgwIwerVgfHwNFHJsUbpxnU-6rOm3-Hy_5Y6MX1LtEBL6vynfmU-kGpkBY3hv7I-vrGFbUU4yL871xvB5cBOrMnTeaRyUY/s1600/land.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwwyamPQFkE_cxesW0HyxPeELkKxzPNoGztGh5t74oUIpUrvrgwIwerVgfHwNFHJsUbpxnU-6rOm3-Hy_5Y6MX1LtEBL6vynfmU-kGpkBY3hv7I-vrGFbUU4yL871xvB5cBOrMnTeaRyUY/s320/land.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">This is not normally a movie I would have seen. I'm not a slave to ratings numbers but I do check IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. On IMDB I usually watch movies that have over 7.0. On Rotten Tomatoes I watch movies over 70% fresh. This was 5.3 on IMDB and 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I was in the mood for something light, I like Will Farrell, the library had it for free and Roger gave it 3 stars so ...<br />
After 10 minutes I wanted to turn it off. The writing couldn't be that bad in the first ten minutes and get good later on could it? They were supposed to hook us in the beginning - no? Well I wasn't hooked.<br />
To describe the plot is almost impossible. It's almost like it was written by a five year old. The jokes are as bad as they can be. The movie has no redeeming qualities. Pre-teens might like it but the humor is too gross for them and it is too infantile for anyone older. So it is a movie without an audience.<br />
The one segment that I did like was when Will Farrell started running and shouting "Try running in a serpentine pattern. He's incapable of rapid course correction. Serpentine everyone. Serpentine! Serpentine! Serpentine!" It, of course, reminds you of that great Alan Arkin and Peter Falk movie, <em>The In-Laws </em>(1979). Now there was a funny movie. This scene brought the only smile of the night to my face, not because of the scene itself, but because of the scene that I thought of when I saw it.<br />
Roger ends his review by saying "I guess you have to be in the mood for a goofball picture like this. I guess I was. Marshall Fine says it's worse than <i>Night at the Museum</i>, but I've seen <i>Night at the Museum</i>, and Marshall, this is no <i>Night at the Museum</i>".<br />
Neither of these movies are any good. Why argue which is worst? Neither should be seen. That is what film critics are supposed to do - warn us about dogs like this. I've got a suggestion for you. Don't see this movie. Do everyone a favor. Then they won't make any more movies like this. Want to see a good movie? Get <em>The In-Laws</em>, 1979 version. (It was remade in 2003 but don't let me get started on that...) </div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yjU_D7Ogj0o?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-90561566422764048942011-01-27T09:58:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:54:55.303-08:0058. The Front (1976)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWU3X0_VcVVpO4cTz1u3X4rELbTmS7few0H7i0bMPZIyDgxygpd9nBmGTk7-nWO2vyC_enJ_aIbd5wTuPUOKq_t4B7vsgz-u96zIsEzKX7uc565bJBxKYO7ip_QcXVJrDscueYZtVCeTSB/s1600/woody2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWU3X0_VcVVpO4cTz1u3X4rELbTmS7few0H7i0bMPZIyDgxygpd9nBmGTk7-nWO2vyC_enJ_aIbd5wTuPUOKq_t4B7vsgz-u96zIsEzKX7uc565bJBxKYO7ip_QcXVJrDscueYZtVCeTSB/s400/woody2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">The movie starts out with film clips of the early 50's to set the tone. The clips included Senator Joe McCarthy's wedding, bombing raids on Korea and a family entering a backyard air raid shelter.<br />
Woody Allen plays Howard Prince, a cashier who is a bookie on the side. He is a loser who borrows from his brother and has trouble paying off winners. <br />
He isn't a bad guy though and when a friend, who is blacklisted, comes and asks him to act as a "front" for his scripts, Howard readily agrees. He soon picks up a couple of other "clients" on whom he makes a 10% commission. As usual, money corrupts, and Howard turns into a jerk. <br />
The movie has some funny moments. Howard talks to a girlfriend who thinks he is a great writer.<br />
"What do you think of sports?"<br />
"I like swimming."<br />
"Swimming isn't a sport. Swimming is what you do so you won't drown."<br />
This kind of comic relief works to counterbalance the tragedies that were happening to the blacklisted writers and the people around them. <br />
One thing that I found very interesting in <i>The Front </i>is that the writers admit that they are Communists. This is much different than the movies in the 1950's and 1960's where the accused had been Communist sympathizers in the past. This movie, made in the 1970's, is saying it wasn't right to persecute the writers even if they were Communists. <br />
The movie leads to some HUAC type fellows giving Howard a hard time. They say things like "To be a spy on the side of freedom is an honor" and implies that true patriots are willing to spy on their friends. The very important issue of what is best for the country vs. individual freedom is explored very well by this movie. <br />
The ending of the movie shows that even an amoral character like Howard can see through the evils being perpetrated by the HUAC like groups. One of the most effective parts is the end credits where many of the actors, including Zero Mostel, are listed as being blacklisted in the early 1950's. <br />
Roger says in his review "Martin Ritt's <i>The Front </i>is the victim of its own publicity. For months, we've been promised this serious film treatment of McCarthyism and the show business blacklists of the early 1950s. We've heard about Woody Allen in his first serious role, and about how the film's director, its author and two of its stars were themselves blacklisted. We expected an indictment of a shameful chapter in American history. <br />
What we get are the adventures of a schlemiel in wonderland. Now those in themselves wouldn't make a bad movie, and <i>The Front </i>has its moments. But they often seem to be moments from a Woody Allen movie -- scenes where the insecure Allen character tries to appear competent and win the girl who's taller than he is, all at once. If <i>The Front </i>had simply settled for being that kind of movie, we could relax and enjoy it. But it keeps pushing for a larger statement, and since the issues involved are totally outside the comprehension of the central character, the movie falls apart."<br />
I disagree with Roger. I think the movie very effectively examines a very serious subject, but does so in an entertaining way. They made the movie, and the topic being covered, accessible to the general movie going public.<br />
Rotten Tomatoes rates the movie at 75% and IMDB has it 7.3. I think Vincent Canby in his review sums it up pretty well : "<i>The Front </i>is not the whole story of an especially unpleasant piece of American history. It may be faulted for oversimplification. Mr. Ritt and Mr. Bernstein, both veterans of the blacklist, are not interested in subtleties. Yet even in its comic moments <i>The Front </i>works on the conscience. It recreates the awful noise of ignorance that can still be heard." <br />
And I think that everyone, particularly the youth of today, need to hear about that ignorance.</div><br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jSoYX_wz6_c?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-74440730050445260872011-01-27T07:20:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:55:13.511-08:0057. The Crucible (1996)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Wxj93Pxp7e9zVPFBCE_rNwhdzz3zMtizBS7S1q1V7jgbh7mvcUou1to7UNMmxnaTcbZpjzVFMYuH8QDdPhatBDqTnUiXBHAzRUlp2b2jaP35rafc3PPfVRyvNKQTIQGqSqy99vZx6cAO/s1600/crucible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Wxj93Pxp7e9zVPFBCE_rNwhdzz3zMtizBS7S1q1V7jgbh7mvcUou1to7UNMmxnaTcbZpjzVFMYuH8QDdPhatBDqTnUiXBHAzRUlp2b2jaP35rafc3PPfVRyvNKQTIQGqSqy99vZx6cAO/s400/crucible.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">The screenplay for <i>The Crucible </i>was written by Arthur Miller, who also wrote the play. It is probably one of the most discussed and most interesting plays ever written.<br />
The movie is based on the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692. The movie contains characters and events that are drawn from history, but some of the events have been fictionalized for dramatic effects and to make Miller's metaphorical exploration more effective.<br />
Paul Scofield, who plays Judge Danford, says "A person is either with this court or against it. There is no road between. This is a new time. A precise time. We live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed with good, and befuddled the world. Now, by God's grace the good folk and the evil entirely separate." <br />
In addition to examining the Witch trials, Arthur Miller was also examining the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, before which Miller was called to testify in 1956. <i>The Crucible </i>was Miller's way of striking back at the political tyranny of the times.<br />
In his review Roger said "The characters I believed in most were Elizabeth Proctor, the Rev. Hale, and Judge Danforth. As written and acted, they seem like plausible people doing their best in an impossible situation. Too many of the others seem like fictional puppets. The village girls in general (and Abigail Williams in particular) don't even seem to belong to the 17th century; as they scurry hysterically around the village, they act like they've seen too many movies. And as John Proctor, Daniel Day-Lewis has the task of making moral stands that are noble, yes, but somehow pro forma. <i>The Crucible </i>is a drama of ideas, but they seem laid on top of the material, not organically part of it."<br />
Roger just didn't seem to think the material came together well. I think the movie was good on many levels. I thought the movie was a great examination of 17th century America. How many movies have examined this time in American history? I also thought the McCarthyism themes that run through the movie make it fascinating viewing. The acting, especially by Daniel Day-Lewis, Joan Allen and Paul Scofield was great. James Berardinelli, in his review says "This version illuminates the story's numerous strengths, resulting in a motion picture of surprising emotional and intellectual impact. By re-interpreting this classic so effectively, Hytner has assured that at least one version of <i>The Crucible </i>will become a part of film history."<br />
The movie doesn't have a tremendous amount of action but if you like American history you will probably love this examination of 17th century America. It has a 6.9 rating on IMDB and a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-43402150238727761682011-01-27T06:25:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:55:33.429-08:0056. The Naked Prey (1966)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRUxDKpePfmB7zgXuF83Mgr1ohGXYojYEf_bkVmdDoS9yC-R1ZPXTe-Kz5NAlmiYIQfUdPAtZMHXNv62XgE4xKsHfkOjG38A6-vgXf7cYCEoH5_NQ1LaIKEwgwwvIdQXXldoKFFGeGvr5/s1600/naked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRUxDKpePfmB7zgXuF83Mgr1ohGXYojYEf_bkVmdDoS9yC-R1ZPXTe-Kz5NAlmiYIQfUdPAtZMHXNv62XgE4xKsHfkOjG38A6-vgXf7cYCEoH5_NQ1LaIKEwgwwvIdQXXldoKFFGeGvr5/s400/naked.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">This is a movie that has stood the test of time. I remember watching this in my youth and being scared to death. The story starts in Africa with a safari led by guide Cornel Wilde (who also directed). When his boss insults the local natives, the safari is attacked and the white men are taking hostage.<br />
The first man is tied up with his face held up. A cobra is then released in front of him. A second man is baked inside of a clay pot and then slowly cooked alive over the fire (this is the fate that gave me nightmares). The third man, Cornel Wilde, is given a head start and then seven hunters start to pursue him.<br />
If you have seen <i>Apocalypto</i>, you know what is to follow. Cornel Wilde makes his way across the harsh terrain, fighting off nature and his pursuers. The camera stops and observes scenes from exotic Africa as he makes his way towards freedom.<br />
Martin Scorsese, in his <a href="http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPage.jsp?assetId=P4480016">review</a> of <i>Apocalpto</i> and <i>The Naked Prey</i>, said of Cornel Wilde " He was a pleasant actor, but you would never guess from his performances that he would develop into such a good filmmaker. The Naked Prey is his best film, I think (I'm also fond of <i>Storm Fear</i>), and it was quite unlike anything else made in 1966, a sort of throwback to the Ernest Schoedsack–Merian C. Cooper productions of the early '30s, particularly <i>The Most Dangerous Game</i>."<br />
Roger in his review said "It's not entirely their fault. Wilde is simply too much for them. He drops nimbly out of trees, creates decoys, builds forest fires and at one point gets advance warning when a native steps on a twig. These must be the very natives James Fenimore Cooper used. Mark Twain observed that if there wasn't a twig for miles around, and one was needed to give Natty Bumpo warning, Cooper's warriors would seek it out and step on it.<br />
One of these days maybe the Africans will get to be in a movie where they hunt the hero down and catch him. I wonder if that one will be filmed in South Africa, too."<br />
Roger's review is insightful and intelligent. I had seen the movies a dozen times and had never thought about it from that perspective. 1966 South Africa, and the white man is dropped down among the natives and emerges victorious. It has been done in a slew of movies : <i>The Last of the Mohicans</i>, <i>The Last Samurai </i>, <i>The Phantom </i>and the Tarzan movies to name a few.<br />
However, while Roger's review may have made sense for 1966, I think that this is a movie that has held up very well. It compares very favorably with <i>Apocalyto</i>. <br />
So while I may agree with Roger may from a political point of view for 1966, I think from a cinematic point of view he has greatly underestimated this very good film. <br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/I7w5Esx9bMA?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649594811552139256.post-45887890459157337512011-01-23T15:21:00.001-08:002012-02-27T14:55:48.801-08:0055. 2012 (2009)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwMhkxZzjPNasbdN5Y547CguiFKbCSZpIuD5VPKNV0rk8h8JVTqIXn7uRc7r8yHpEucjDFXHqXJ6Mj75U7z8qFsXsg6CUzfDew1VFc9JPh0TtXUaUKdHvxjCrkLcCUg5HwN8ZHyR4kqFLg/s1600/2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwMhkxZzjPNasbdN5Y547CguiFKbCSZpIuD5VPKNV0rk8h8JVTqIXn7uRc7r8yHpEucjDFXHqXJ6Mj75U7z8qFsXsg6CUzfDew1VFc9JPh0TtXUaUKdHvxjCrkLcCUg5HwN8ZHyR4kqFLg/s400/2012.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Roger's Rating :<br />
<img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/threehalf.gif" /><br />
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Should be :<br />
<img alt="" src="http://maltinsworst.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/onehalf.gif" /><br />
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<div style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19pt;">If you are going to make a bad movie please keep it short. This disaster of a movie went on for 158 minutes. I was really cheering for the world to end much, much sooner.<br />
I very seldom see a movie with this low of a rating on IMDB (5.9), but Roger gave it 3 1/2 stars so I figured I had to see it.<br />
I like sci-fi and I especially like apocalyptic movies. I also really like John Cusack, so I was hoping to like this movie, but I didn't. It was slow and boring.<br />
In his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091111/REVIEWS/911119994">review</a> Roger said : "This is fun. 2012 delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year. It even has real actors in it. Like all the best disaster movies, it's funniest at its most hysterical. You think you've seen end-of-the-world movies? This one ends the world, stomps on it, grinds it up and spits it out."<br />
At Rotten Tomatoes the critics have it at 39%. Peter Travers from <i>Rolling Stone </i>said "Beware <i>2012</i>, which works the dubious miracle of almost matching <i>Transformers 2</i> for sheer, cynical, mind-numbing, time-wasting, money-draining, soul-sucking stupidity."<br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="300" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5VXa82AuwHU?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4