Reviews

Carnivale is absolutely brilliant. I am amazed at every episode. The story unfolds with wonderfully colorful layers that constantly change the way you look at it. At times, the acting seems a little forced. With a cast of such talented actors I have to believe that that is the fault of the production itself. Nick Stahl, however, gives an absolutely flawless performance every time. He's really grown into his talent (and looks!). I am most impressed by the writing, the way the human aspect of the characters is so well interwoven with the macabre imagery. A production with this kind of theme and these kind of characters could easily turn campy and yet it doesn't. There's no way a show like this should be believable, but it is.

Like The English Patient, this is a FICTIONAL movie depicting real people in a FICTIONAL tale. Don't over anaylize the historical accuracy of it. It is not historically acurate, it is not intended to be. What it IS, is a beautiful romantic story about a playwright and his muse. The parallels they create between Shakespeare and Viola and Romeo and Juliet are priceless and wonderful.

Also, I have to say, the performances of Romeo and Juliet in this movie are the best I have ever seen. I would love to see all the players from this movie do Romeo and Juliet the way they did in this movie. I have never before seen anyone speak the lines from any Shakespeare play in a way which conveys the feeling of them, as opposed to the meaning of them. It is a pity that the only time it is done is in bits and pieces for another movie.

This movie is great. Everything from the costumes to the acting is superb.

Some animated features seem to turn good actors into over-actors. I suppose it has to do with them assuming since we can't see -their- faces, they need to put extra emotion into their voices. Prince of Egypt is not one of these animated features.

There was one tiny thing that kept throwing me out of the movie. I kept thinking, 'Why are Rameses and Seti British?'. I love both Patrick Stewart and Ralph Fiennes, but it seemed odd. Mostly it was Seti that I was thrown out by. Ralph Fiennes' accent wasn't as strong as Stewarts.

Some of the music was really annoying and I was worried during the first 10 minutes that it might be nothing but music. I thought the animation was well done. I was most impressed by a scene near the end where Rameses was shouting 'Moses'.

The premise seems to be: Two men who are gay but think they are straight cruz for chicks.

Said two men are also brothers, which is doubley disturbing because they seem to be in love. Not the brotherly way!

The only reason I gave this a 2 and not a 1 was because of the wedding scenes near the end. These were saved by the appearance of Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall) and Richard Grieco... Just thinking about Richard Grieco and Mark McKinney in the same place makes me laugh.

Every other moment in the film was a bit like having your nails ripped from you fingers in tiny strips.

Cube was certainly not the worst movie I have ever seen. But I definitely would not classify it as the best. It has its moments, but with a movie like this where the set is so plain and seemingly simple, I found myself picking it apart. Some things just didn't make sense. Like how did those doors work? How is it that when they opened up door 'x', door 'y' on the other side wasn't an issue. The same goes with closing them. If they were opening and closing together then the police guy would have had more problems then just his neck being crushed towards the end. One thing that really bothered me was a scene where they are sneaking past metal spikes triggered by noise. How did they know just which door to open?

Despite these 'small' flaws, it was an interesting movie. I liked it and watched it again. I found out then that it is not really a great movie to watch more than once.