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Reviews
Orgy of the Dead (1965)
not that fun
Don't get me wrong--I fully appreciate Ed Wood (I gave Glen or Glenda a 10)--but this one just doesn't have that much going on. The opening day-and-night switches are humorous, and you have to give credit to a movie plot which can be summed up in two words--"car crash"--but the strip teases which make up 90% of the film grow old kind of quickly. Still, it does have Criswell with an awful tan, and he does say "torture,torture--it pleasures me!" So it's not a total waste, but it is probably Wood's most boring movie. You'll be fast-forwarding alot to get to the Criswell stuff.
American Beauty (1999)
it is good, but kind of over-rated, no?
I enjoyed American Beauty alot, but I'm a little confused by the gushing reaction so many people have for this film. It was certainly interesting, but I couldn't help thinking that it is just a mainstream version of Happiness, from last year. Kind of like if next year they do a trillion-dollar Blair Witch Project with Keanu Reeves, or something...I think Beauty suffers from the (for me) inevitable comparison to Happiness, which is much more thought-provoking and disturbing.
Fantasia 2000 (1999)
don't bother
I just went to great lengths to see Fantasia in an IMAX theater, and I was disappointed. Little use is made of the new screen size, and I would have been just as content to have waited for the wide release this summer. The animation itself is just okay. The Donald Duck segment is less entertaining than the Mouse Factory saturday morning show. Most awful are the little embarassing intros by Bette Midler, Penn & Teller, etc. Those damn space whales were cool at first, but gradually began to remind me of those Lisa Frank sticker books for little girls. It seems odd that after fifty years they couldn't come up with something as simple and entertaining as the Sorcerer's Apprentice segment. The Steadfast Tim Soldier segment is entertaining and pretty, but the stuff that was supposed to get an emotional response (will Donald find Daisy? Who cares?) didn't work for me. Go see Toy Story 2 or Princess Mononoke, and hold out for the dollar show on this one.
Chacun cherche son chat (1996)
Find this movie now.
This movie uses the set-up of a woman looking for her cat to introduce the people and places of a trendy neighborhood in Paris. It is completely entertaining, and the ending is just perfect. The exploration of the relationships between strangers makes this film more than a forgettable light comedy, but a really lovable movie. Too many long words ruin this description--just find it now, if you can.
Glen or Glenda (1953)
This is Ed Wood's most interesting film.
If you know enough to look up this movie, you've probably already seen it. If not, you need to see this now. Poverty-row sets (which always give these kind of movies a creepy realism), lack of conventional acting ability and weirdly-phrased dialogue are in all Wood's movies, but here we also have Bela Lugosi as God, buffalo stampedes, funny disembodied voices, the devil with eyebrow-horns...I could go on. It's the world as it should be.