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Reviews
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Sasha Baron Cohen is an embarrassing racist
According to the CIA's website, Kazakhstan is a country with a majority Muslim religion of 47%. Cohen is supposedly portraying a typical Kazakhstani, therefore a typical Muslim. He portrays this Muslim character to be a backwards, degenerate, jew-hating imbecile, who likes rape, incest and murder. I am not a Muslim, or religious, in any way, but I can understand that for a Jewish person to do this at such a sensitive time with the fake war on terror going on, is not a particularly pleasant thing to do. However, as you can see by the high rating on IMDb, most people are too stupid to figure out what is going on.
In fact Cohen is making a good living of importing racism to America. He portrays Muslims, Germans, and the French in his new movie Taladaga nights, in very negative manners, which will no doubt fuel anti-European and anti-Muslim feelings in what already is a hate filled USA.
Man of the House (2005)
One of the best movies ever
I saw this movie last night. Usually during movies I become very bored and have to start thinking about others things to keep myself busy, but this is one of the few movies that I did not have to do that. Keep in mind when going to see this film, it is not the type of movie that should be analyzed or critiqued. It is a simple film ideal for a weekend night and perfect for a date.
I would say this movie is targetted at high school or college students. If you are a heterosexual male, you will find it hard not to enjoy the movie. It is basically five really hot girls prancing around wearing next to nothing for 90 minutes. The two blondes are absolutely gorgeous especially Monica Keena. I wasn't so keen on the hispanic and black girls, but maybe that because I am white.
Tommy Lee Jones plays the same part he does in any movie, but he is funny enough to keep your attention. If you really didn't like this movie, you are working too hard. It may be predictable, it may be rather stupid, but pretentious academy-award winning used toilet paper it is not. I highly recommend it.
Sideways (2004)
A car-crash of a movie
This is probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I had gone to see it with high hopes as it has been pegged as a hilarious romantic comedy. Perhaps I should have learnt a little bit more about the movie before seeing it.
This story follows two characters who travel around California sampling wine. One of them (Church) is getting married imminently and wants to fornicate with another woman before tieing the bond. The other man (Paul G.) is a writer who appears to be low in himself. They both appear to be in their 50's, maybe 40's. Church decides to have a fling with possibly the ugliest Chinese person I have ever seen called Stefanie. This is probably the highlight of the movie.
I highly recommend this movie if you are middle-aged pretentious prat. The film reeks of forced sophistication, its tries to be clever, tries to be witty, but nothing even slightly interesting occurs in action or in dialogue. I can see how there are some people watch this movie and say "That is so true - Merlot really does taste like that when it isn't oxygenated enough!" It really boggles my mind how weak some of the higher rated films on IMDb are. I think some people have no idea what a good film is. This is probably the most pretentious film I have ever seen.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Kubricks worst film
This is without a doubt the worst Stanley Kubrick film I have ever seen. I am a big Kubrick fan, and amongst my favorite films of his are The Shinings, Full Metal Jacket and Barry Lyndon. Maybe the film is ruined already because I actually read the book first.
One of the main reasons Kubrick totally missed the ball with this movie, is because he forgot to include the last chapter of the book. This is the chapter where Alex grows up and becomes a man. This is like watching The Usual Suspects, but then switching it off 5 minutes before the end - you lose the entire point of the whole film.
Besides this major flub, the film is a poor rendition of the book. Like a lot of Kubrick films, it has a totally unrealistic feel to it. He composes the shots more like paintings than movie scenes - like in Barry Lyndon. People forget that Kubrick was initially a still photographer before he became a director, and I think it shows a lot in his work.
When I read the book, the world that Alex and his droogs lived in did not seem anything like the "futuristic" world Kubrick presents (complete with 1972 VW Beetles and 70's styled trucks). Instead of ultra-violence, we see much more of ultra-cheese. Which idiot made up the idea that Dim should repeat every word everyone says? That didn't happen in the book.
Kubrick has took the book and butchered it. Some reviews on here make it seem like Kubrick was the genius who came up with the concept, the idea for this great story. He just took a great story, snipped the ending, and made a rather silly movie that glorifies violence. I understand that this is a very "in" film to like, and there are probably many idiots who idol Alex and his droogs.
Overall, very poor work from Kubrick. Verges on downright cheese at times. Especially the shots of Alex with fangs in his mouth for no apparent reason. I give it 1 star.
Finding Neverland (2004)
A lot like Big Fish
This film is pretty good. It has a similar kind of feel and style to it as the Tim Burton film Big Fish. To be honest I thought Big Fish was a better film. It does tend to really try and pull at your heart strings a lot, especially towards the end. It just depends if you want to go see a movie and leave feeling thoroughly depressed as to whether you like this film. The girl who I was with cried a river, I had to use a boat to get out of the movie theatre. One thing I will say is that Johnny Depp did an excellent Scottish accent - probably the best that I know of. No doubt this film will win quite a lot of awards, but does anyone understand how academy awards are calculated? Its not always the best film that wins. I tend to not like movies that are quite so emotional. There is already enough sadness in the world, so the only reason to go see a movie is to watch a good comedy, because then at least you can laugh. My recommendation is to see it if you are already in a bad mood, because this will go well with it. I give it 6 out of 10.
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Very nice movie
This movie is interesting to me, as I am not an American. But as a European who has lived in America for 13 years it is interesting to see this movie and read other comments from people who have also seen it. I have noticed that Americans are very status oriented and achievement focused people. If you have achieved a lot you are a "winner" and if you are less ambitious you are deemed a "loser". In this sense American society is very black and white.
This movie concentrates on what other Americans would call "losers". People who do not fit in, people who live in the distant past, people without meaningful careers. The main character of the movie is definitely a social misfit and he attracts and maintains friends only with other social misfits. There is one excellent shot depicting this where Napoleon, Deb and Pedro are staring out at all the people dancing, and they are standing motionless. Napoleon does not fit into the high school social structure in any way, and stemming from this he has feelings of worthlessness. His character has poor self esteem. He says things like "I don't have any good skills" and finds it necessary to make up grandiose lies about himself to appear better to others.
I think this is a depressing movie for a lot of people. In America, popularity and acceptance are so heavily emphasized as being important, and young adults are raised to be intolerant of different people who do not fit into the moulded stereotypes that television and the media present us with. This is why in America you get people who are ridiculed for being different who sometimes make extreme statements using violence.
The best scene in the movie is by far for me the school dance scene. The song "forever young" is perfect accompaniment for the actions within the scene making it poignantly sad. The director does an excellent job in making the audience sympathize with Napoleon as Summer waves to her friends and they wave back, while Napoleon waves to his friends, and they don't even notice him.
On the whole I recommend this film. It is not as funny as people say it is, but an interesting character study of some odd and quirky characters.
Star Wars (1977)
Star Wars is for dorks
I have to admit Star Wars : A new hope is a rather good movie. Although it has quite a slow start, towards the end of the movie it gets quite exciting, and you genuinely feel the tension as Luke barrels down the trench at the end. Having said that, it is important to note that although it is a good movie, its isn't THAT good. There are many other films that make far more of an emotional impact.
The movie has been immortalized by sad, lonely people who struggle to fit into to regular society. I have a dork friend who is obsessed by Star Wars. He goes to see the new movies at midnight on opening night, hangs out at Star Wars geek meetings to discuss who important topics such as who fired first : Han or Geeko? Him and his hopeless depressed peers ponder upon the logistics of making many millions of clones and how the Emperor is an expert double crosser. I look at him and I pity him, because I do not believe that he will ever understand its a stupid film that made George Lucas a billionaire, and none of the characters are actually real.
I have to be honest, out of 5 films only 1 has been any good. Which leaves me the question, why is Star Wars so popular? I have to say also, I thought Lord of the Rings was total cack also. But the intense geek following that is characteristic of Star Wars nerds is almost nauseating. God help sad lonely dorks, and may the force help them find girlfriends. Peace.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
People who have already seen this movie have biased opinions
I think it is important for people who have not yet seen this movie yet to understand that the majority of reviewers who saw this movie before its release date were involved in a religious group that got the movie before its public release, and like most religious people, are biased in favor of anything holy. Not that this is a bad thing, but for the average person, it can skew the results. This is an average movie, with an inordinate amount of gore. It was a difficult movie to watch because of the grotesqueness of its face value, and despite many people saying how moving it is, it really isnt. Maybe its just my religious leanings speaking (which are none) but I do not for a minute think that if someone walked around today saying he was the next Jesus he would be put in the lockup quicker than you can say David Koresh.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Probably the worst movie I have ever seen
Never before have I had such high expectations for a movie but been let down so much. I should have known when I saw that Sofia Coppola directed it that it was going to be dire. But it had got rave reviews as being "hilarious" and with SNL's Bill Murray how could you go wrong. The grim truth of the matter is that the film has a weak unoriginal plot, the premise of the story happens 40 minutes into the movie, there are many many long shots of Bill wondering around the city like its a show on the discovery channel.
But what I found most disgusting about this movie was the way that the American characters are basically mocking the Japanese culture and the way they talk throughout the whole movie. I am not oriental, in fact I am a white male, but when I try to put myself in the shoes of a Japanese person watching this film, the film comes across with the typical American arrogance and self-centeredness that Americans are used to. I am really annoyed I wasted my time on this film, Sofia Coppola should be ashamed of herself, as should the academy for nominating this trash. In the end I can only pity people who find this film "beautiful" and "poetic". It is devoid of intelligence and originality.
Dreamcatcher (2003)
This movie gives me hope (spoilers)
Sometimes when I am sad and depressed about my own life, I stop and thinking about this movie. Because no matter how bad my life is, at least I didn't make a movie about an alien disguised as a retard that saves the world while muttering lines from Scooby Doo. Yes, this movie has got to be the stupidest movie of all time. Then we throw in the most annoying actor of all time, that being Jason Lee, and a dweebish red-head that begins to talk with an English accent when he is taken over by the alien force. I don't know what it is about Jason Lee, but everytime I see him he is annoying. He just seems like a whiny dweeb. Seriously though, when I do stop to think about the ending of this movie, I have to laugh. If you see it, you will too.
House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
This is the worst movie I have ever seen( Possible Spoilers)
I rented this movie thinking it was going to be really creepy and scary. However, I was in shock and terror to realize how bad this movie is. It is difficult to find anything in the movie that really is entertaining, the shots of things that are supposed to be gross and disgusting are just plain silly. The movie begins with a store hold-up scene which has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Then the typical horror movie group of teenagers decide to go on a "road-trip" on the way picking up a typical hitchhiker. Sounds a little bit like Texas Chainsaw Massacre huh? Well, I think dumb old Rob Zombie wished he had made it first, because he basically copied the movie. There is nothing in this movie that passes as a logical train of events, no characters that you end up caring about, nothing "terrifying" to remotely perturb you. Towards the end of the movie, it turns into Alice in Wonderland, where the locations the characters go into, just are not at all believable. I mean why would serial killers build a long passageway beneath their house and put corpses on the side of it? Believe me, this is the worst movie I have ever seen.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Winner of Snorefest 2002 award
This review contains spoilers.
This is one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. Each plot element was over-drawn out. It took 3 hours to tell what could have been told sufficiently and more interestingly in 90 minutes. The main plot elements were: 1) Frodo finds thats the ring is getting heavy 2) Saurons forces are rising 3) Pippin and Merry spend the whole movie in a tree 4) Gollum has 2 personalities.
The use of helicopter shots became very irritating after the 15th use the technique in the 3rd minute of the movie. Also in the middle of the final battle sequence they kept cutting back to a bunch of trees talking, what an idea to keep the action flowing.
The long battle at the end was the same thing over and over. Not to mention both sides had stupid battle plans. The humans defense wasnt even slightly planned out. It was totally unbelievable.
Then the boring subplot with Arwen aerosmiths daughter, I mean really, who cares if she dies. She was in the first one for 5 minutes anyway.
It is also very silly that this movie is already number 9 on IMDB top 250 movies of all time. I can easily name 10 movies much better than this. The only reason it is so high is because people want to have a little geek war between star wars and lord of the rings so the movies can have a higher rating.
I contemplated leaving early as I started to fall asleep and I had to wake my girlfriend many times. Seriously dull movie.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Winner of Snorefest 2002 award
This review contains spoilers.
This is one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. Each plot element was over-drawn out. It took 3 hours to tell what could have been told sufficiently and more interestingly in 90 minutes. The main plot elements were: 1) Frodo finds thats the ring is getting heavy 2) Saurons forces are rising 3) Pippin and Merry spend the whole movie in a tree 4) Gollum has 2 personalities.
The use of helicopter shots became very irritating after the 15th use the technique in the 3rd minute of the movie. Also in the middle of the final battle sequence they kept cutting back to a bunch of trees talking, what an idea to keep the action flowing.
The long battle at the end was the same thing over and over. Not to mention both sides had stupid battle plans. The humans defense wasnt even slightly planned out. It was totally unbelievable.
Then the boring subplot with Arwen aerosmiths daughter, I mean really, who cares if she dies. She was in the first one for 5 minutes anyway.
It is also very silly that this movie is already number 9 on IMDB top 250 movies of all time. I can easily name 10 movies much better than this. The only reason it is so high is because people want to have a little geek war between star wars and lord of the rings so the movies can have a higher rating.
I contemplated leaving early as I started to fall asleep and I had to wake my girlfriend many times. Seriously dull movie.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Total bogwash
Adam Sandler is not funny in this movie. I struggled to stay awake during the first hour. People say this is a "deep" movie, but in all honesty who cares about symbolism and deeper meanings. When i pay money to see a movie i want to be entertained, and this wasnt entertaining.
A lot of people who have written reviews about this movie criticize the people who did not like this movie because they are "stupid" and cannot comprehend the "deeper" meaning to the movie. Maybe they just like Adam Sandler doing what he does best - making retarded jokes and acting like a jackass. Maybe the people who like movies that involve absolutely no higher level activity are tired of thinking because they have careers where they use their brain all day long, not like some wanna-be artsy film critic in college who slams everyone for liking films that are "dumb".
If critics cannot understand a movie, they give it a good review because they are scared they will look stupid if the other critics claim to "understand" it. This leads to lots of movies with pointless boring "symbolic" scenes in them which actually are total crap getting rave reviews from the so-called critics.
Signs (2002)
Good movie (possible spoilers)
I really dont like to like movies that have been given a lot of hype such as "signs" was. However, when I went to see it in a relatively packed theatre, everyone was into the movie. It did make you feel uncomfortable, and there were about 4 parts that made you jump. There were a lot of funny parts, and overall it was funnier than it was scary. But there are faults with the movie: 1) If the aliens are allergic to water, why would they choose to invade a planet which is 70% water, and harvest human when the human body is mostly made of water also? 2)If I aliens had just been trying to get into my cellar door, there is no chance in hell I would pass out and go to sleep for 12 hours. It is far more likely that I would pass out for 30 minutes, and every slight noise I would hear would wake me up.
The film had a feeling very similiar to the superior film called "The Others", and it also reminded me a lot of "Night of the Living Dead", but it is worth the money, and its an anjoyable film. As for if it is worthy of an oscar, I say no. The oscars are awards that have no basis on whether a film is good or not, its just a bunch of old people sitting around playing movie buffs. Come on, like a Beautiful Mind should have won best picture.
Minority Report (2002)
Way over-rated
I read before seeing this movie that it was the next Indiana Jones so I was really excited. Lets face it Speilberg has done some great work with Close Encounters, ET, Indiana Jones series, ect, and this they said was as good as his best. I was very disappointed. It was not at all action the whole way through. There was one action scene where I was like "THis is Awesome" but apart from that it meandered on and on, especially at the end. It was very much like AI - you thought it was going to end but it dragged on for 20 more minutes. At least Indiana Jones relied on simple good story telling instead of a totally convuluted plot. However the special effects were good and the future looks kinda cool. Some parts of the movie were neat, neat ideas, but it was hard to follow, or maybe I was getting bored. This movie gets 1 star for being able to dupe me into believeing it was going to be a great film, and it wasnt.
Raw Deal: A Question of Consent (2001)
interesting
I was attending UF when the event happened and I read about it in the newspapers. I didnt realize it was that big of a deal at the time though. It is really obvious that she was raped, and anyone who doesnt think so really needs help. It is also obvious that she was tired, kinda drugged up, but she somewhat knew what was going on and it wasnt what she wanted. I do feel sorry for the stripper, and Mike Yahraus is obviously guilty as sin. But although I dont want to say she got what she deserved, in life, if you put yourself in certain situations there is a higher probability that bad things will occur than other situations. A drunk female stripper with a bunch of frat boys is one of these situations where something bad can easily happen, and it did. Miss King is not the smartest person in the world, and to pick the profession of a stripper when she was married with kids indicates that she needed some counseling or some kind of help. But you have to feel somewhat bad for her. The frat boys in their interviews came across as the silly spoiled little boys that they are. I hope that the people involved really do feel the repercussions of the event, especially the Tony Marzullo character, who comes across as pure scum.
Spider-Man (2002)
How this is in the top 250 is beyond me (Possible Spoiler)
This movie wasn't that good. It was totally formulaic. There was very little original or interesting about the movie. I'm not really into comic books but I know that the original Spiderman invented little things he puts on his wrist which shoots out the web for him. The Matrix was ripped off many times in this movie, as was Superman. Then for no apparent reason what-so-ever, Peter Parker decides to shun MJ, turning her down after she admits her love for him. What a load of crap.
The costumes were very cheesy looking. Especially that scene when the Green Goblin asks Spiderman to join up with him. With none of their mouths moving, it just looks corny. Having said that, the Green Goblin was the most interesting character in the movie. Pretty much every film made nowadays is total garbage. As exemplified this year, the Oscars are nothing but propaganda machines that try and program the average american viewer to believe that the Best Picture film really is that great. Lets face it A Beautiful Mind wasn't.
Spiderman will do great at the box-office, as countless amounts of mindless drones go and see a film that they knew how it was going to end before it even began. Even when you see David Lynch films nowadays, its still predictable, because you can predict that it will make no sense at all. Hollywood needs to come up with new ideas, but maybe the same old thing is what everyone wants.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
OK not great
I saw this movie the other day. The two main leads are hot and there are two great lesbian scenes to boot. Apart from that the movie was just OK. I like pretty much all the David Lynch films that I have seen so far. But this one was just kinda boring. The first hour and a half is pretty conventional film-making. It draws you in and you are interested to see what will happen next. However, after they go to some midnight retarded opera the film starts to not make any sense whatsoever.
(Possible Spoiler )I have read some explanations of the film and what was going on with the characters. It's all very interesting, but to me, it's pointless. I was told that when you make a movie you are supposed to make the audience care about your characters. This movie does that in the first hour and a half, but then we are told the characters we care about, aren't really the characters at all. They don't even have the same names as we thought they did, and they act a whole lot different too. This leaves the audience with really nothing to care about in the movie, just the hopes that more nudity will ensue. Twin Peaks was much better, as was Blue Velvet.
Session 9 (2001)
Stupid
This film was so god awful it defied reality. While watching it me and my friend constantly had to make jokes because the script was so boring. They have this huge place to fix up, its gigantic, and they have 2 weeks to do, and through nine tenths of the movie everyone is goofing off or on lunch break, apart from that one dude who just listens to tapes.
Then there is the first mildly interesting part which happens an hour into the movie when one guy gets picked off or whatever. Hes walking down a passage and for no apparent reason there is a peanut butter jar in the middle of it. What kind of stupid ass murderer does this? Why in the middle of a passageway? It makes no sense. Also, when they all hear footsteps on the floor above them, they decide it would be a good idea to investigate this by going down to the basement. One of them just decides he is going to listen to more stupid tapes while everyone else is searching for the missing person. This film is a classic case of a good idea gone terribly wrong. If you have to watch the directors commentary to actually realize that the movie is somewhat good, then the movie isnt really good. Besides that all the props that were supposably 18 yrs old, all looked brand new.