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Reviews
The Sacketts (1979)
What a Waste of a Great Cast
I really felt sorry for some of the classic western actors who ended up participating in this drivel. The whole thing seemed like it was written, directed and edited by a bunch of eighth-graders! It also seemed that it might have been severely edited to reduce the running time, and if that's the case, my criticism might be bit too harsh. Was this perhaps originally a 6-hour movie that was cut down to 4 hours?
I can't believe that, at the time this is being written, that IMDb readers have given this an average rating of 7.5. I'm giving it a 1 in hopes that others will too to keep serious movie-watchers from wasting four hours of their time as I did last night.
Gaslight (1940)
Diana Wynyard's performance surpasses Ingrid
In my opinion, the 1944 version is a more enjoyable and watchable film largely due to an overall superior script. (Despite some of the Hollywood touches, such as the unnecessary romantic interest of Joseph Cotten's character in Paula.) However, I really feel that Diana Wynyard's portrayal of the wife is more realistic. She never accepts her husband's claims that she is going mad. On the other hand, Ingrid's character, Paula, accepts it and she turns to milquetoast right away. While I love Ingrid, I feel she was over-acting in this film despite her Best Actress academy award. She deserved it far more for her role in Notorious two years later.
The Best of Film Noir (1999)
Worth Renting For a Couple of Bucks
This overview of film noir is somewhat comical, it's so poorly done.Whoever put together this dvd was apparently a novice in dvd technology. You can see
though that this was a labor of love, and in that regard, it's worth watching. I would advise skipping the main feature and going straight to the special
features. I thought the commentary section with Jeffrey Myers was quite good.
Dirty Harry (1971)
Forget the sequels!
Forget the sequels as they all pale in comparison to the original. This one, in my opinion, is the best film that Don Siegel ever directed and that Clint ever
appeared in. I only have one question. How did Andrew Robinson fail to win the Best Supporting Actor award? Was he even nominated?
Brainstorm (1983)
Absolutely awful!
I recently rented this video as I had always wanted to see this film since it was shot on location in North Carolina and was the last movie Natalie Wood made
before she died. I didn't realize it was directed by Douglas Trumbull, and I
shuddered after seeing the opening credits.
As bad as Silent Running is, this movie is ten times worse. Somehow Trumbull thinks that filming great-looking locations and inserting special effects into a movie is what movie-making is all about. He doesn't have a clue otherwise, and Hollywood seems to agree as I see that these two movies are the only ones he's ever directed.
Saxophone Colossus (1986)
Not a concert of Saxophone Colossus!
I rented this expecting a live concert featuring some or most of the songs from Sonny's classic album of the same name. It is instead a 1986 mixed bag of stuff simply borrowing on the title.
Winter People (1989)
Realistic portrayal of the land and people
This movie was filmed near my hometown in the Western North Carolina mountains in a little community called Plumtree in Avery County. The severe winter weather depicted in the film is like it really is. The elevation here is about 3500 feet and the area gets enough snow to support a large snow skiing industry.
The Crying Game (1992)
The Scorpion and the Frog
The use of this story in The Crying Game is not unique in cinema history. It was told by Orson Welles in his 1955 movie, Mr. Arkadin. (I at first thought that Mr. Welles was the author of this fable, but it apparently has been around for some time.)
Body Double (1984)
Vastly under-rated movie
I would recommend totally dis-regarding GnrlGrnt's comments as this is one of my all-time favorite movies. Sure, it's not Hitchcock, but it's a very entertaining movie and a good attempt at making a thriller in the context of the porn business.