Reviews

And let's just say, there's no gold is these parts.

This was nominated for Best Picture in what was the first year of the Academy nominating 10 films for that prize.

Mind you, this was a few years after another Coen film actually WON Best Picture. There was no gold there either. In fact, the horses apparently invited about 100 of their horsey friends to the field on that day.

"A Serious Man". I'm retitling this film, "Seriously?!" The Coens give us such classics as "Fargo" and their most recent "True Grit", and they hit solid home runs. The problem with these Coen boys is, most of their films have grounded out in my opinion, and this one is no exception. They have stated repeatedly they make films they want to see. Well, they can keep this one.

My biggest pet peeve in movies is when a film has a beginning and a middle and an ending, without actually GIVING us an ending. It's as if they just ran out of film and/or budget and said, "Check the gate! Print! Wrap party in one hour!" It drives me FREAKING CRAZY. So yeah, I just watched this film and my p.-and-vinegar is firing off nice and fresh.

What was the point of this film? To see this guy's life unravel, a few sorta-good things happen along the way, blah blah blah, for almost two hours. Then, with absolutely NO loose ends, or tight ends, or ANY ends tied up...roll credits. Tornado? Meh, who cares. X-ray results? Bah, he's a quack. Columbia Record Club? Pfft, I'm sure they'll just write it off. Arthur's arrest for solicitation and sodomy, not to mention all this mathematical jazz we hear about time and time again? BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Joke's on you, viewer! YOU GET NO ANSWERS! IT DOESN'T MATTER! THANKX FOR YOUR TWO HOURS! A complete, dreadful, wasteful, pathetic film that made me angry, and not the good kind of angry like after watching "Inside Job". I mean the WTF kind of anger in knowing you just wasted two hours of your life investing your time and effort into a film that delivered nothing. No answers, no denouement, no sense.

Oh, I almost forgot! The first 7-8 minutes of the film before the opening credits roll? It's something, perhaps set in Poland, that means ultimately...you guessed it...NOTHING! It has NOTHING to do with the rest of the film. It makes NO sense in and of itself. The IMDb trivia section for this film actually makes mention about that opening segment: "The Coen Brothers stated that the opening scene was nothing more than a little short that they made up to get the audience in the proper mood, and that there is no meaning behind it." I couldn't have said it better myself. The opening scene had no purpose, point, sense, belonging or reason. It was perfect, because it completely foreshadowed and defined the next 100 minutes.

The film gets a "2" for the ONE funny scene that made me laugh, but it's so late in the film that I don't even want to subject you to sitting through the first hour-plus to get to it.

Gimmick wins. That's what sold the movie.

While better than "Bee Movie", I think it loses out to "Bolt" on my measuring stick of animated films this decade.

The plot was flimsy and rather nonsensical, even for animation. The characters were hard to get into, especially the monsters. Obviously we got lots of backstory and emphasis on Susan, since she's the focal point of the story. However, the rest of the monsters were just thrown at us with a quick "Oh, we have to let the audience know how they became monsters" attitude and as a result, I felt no connection or desire to care about the rest of them. The lead villain was kinda fun, and Stephen Colbert's President had a moment here and there. As a whole, though, I think this movie was all about the 3-D and pretty much nothing more as a selling point. To Dreamworks' credit, that strategy worked.

Sadly, having just seen the film it's been proved to me that for the most part, the nomination process for the Best Animated Feature Oscar pretty much is limited to the films that get the most promotion and make the most money. Therefore, those who nominate the films will bother to sit down and watch it, and since it's the one they remember at least hearing about, BAM! It gets nominated.

About an hour into the film, I found myself just checking the DVD timer to see how much longer the thing was going to run. The story was OK, but all in all it wasn't holding my interest, and the hamster character was being shoved down our throats in an over-the-top "Hey! He's cute and manic and therefore, he must be funny!" way. John Travolta and Miley Cyrus didn't seem to be clicking for the main voices either, they were just rather ordinary. Malcolm McDowell was hammy but for that particular character, it worked. Susie Essman was the only voice actor who seemed to try to give her character, Mittens, a real soul that transcended just being a "cartoon voice".

Fortunately, the last 20-25 minutes got more interesting, with the fake-out of Penny supposedly falling in love with the "new" Bolt, plus the rather dramatic pacing of the climactic fire and rescue. For this, to go the Siskel and Ebert route, the film overall gets a "thumbs up". However, I can't see "Bolt" being all that remembered and revered years from now. The Disney films from the last decade that people almost never recall immediately are such ones as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Hercules". In 2019, "Bolt" will likely be parallel.

Most people love this movie, my girlfriend included. It's considered a classic. But I saw this for the first time recently, and this film just did not work for me at all. At all. I found the characters unlikable, I found the story and how it played out to be totally ridiculous, I did not find anything even remotely funny or cute. Worst of all, it just seemed to go on and on and on and never go anywhere. When it wrapped up, I heard the music that indicated to me the film was ending, and I laughed harder than I did for any part of the movie because after all that going on and on and going nowhere, it ended with the result of: STILL having gone nowhere!

This film's considered by some historians to be a turning point for Jimmy Stewart with a bravura performance. I never wanted Jimmy Stewart off my television screen so badly. I wanted him locked up within ten minutes, throw away the key, BAM! Movie over. Instead, we have to suffer through inept doctors, screaming family members, Jesse White somehow sold to us as a romantic lead and a whole LOT of drawn-out scenes with Jimmy telling stories of an imaginary rabbit to people who can't decide from one minute to the next if this guy should be locked up in a nuthouse or deified as the Greatest Man Alive.

Just dreadful. I'm sorry, but I don't see how this was a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, much less a movie classic.

I saw this today and I came out of it relieved to see it end. This just went on too long and didn't need a lot of the exposition and filler it had to tell the story, which from what I've seen certainly was a lot shorter in F. Scott Fitzgerald print form.

There were three things about this movie that cause me to say it does not deserve to be Best Picture.

1) I understand the story that was trying to be told with the old woman and her daughter in the hospital. However, the constant cutaways to Benjamin's life story and then back to the hospital for this subplot just got to be annoying after awhile; i.e., this subplot just got in the way and added about 45 minutes of screen time that could have been shortened or just outright eliminated.

2) There were so many times in this movie as it moved along that I kept being reminded of "Forrest Gump". There's just a lot of the styles and elements of that film from 1994 that I saw here: the friendship as children that grew into love as adults, the main character as a child having trouble walking, the love story that oftentimes couldn't be, the crazy but ultimately likable guy running the ship that the main character works on, etc. I can't believe I haven't already heard more about just how similar these stories are on film.

3) The whole element of Hurricane Katrina. Was it really necessary? Did it add anything to the story? I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who didn't need a reminder of that.

Yeah, all in all, I gave this a "6" but I'm thinking even that's generous...the film was fine, but just too long and too much like another (and better) film that won Oscars 15 years ago. I don't feel this deserves the honor.

UPDATE: Time has passed and with more and more blatant obvious similarities to "Gump" having come into the public eye, this now gets a "2". Next time Eric Roth does a film, I hope someone does some cross-referencing. This film did about as well in the Oscars as it deserved to: 3-for-13 with no major wins.

The best Muppet material out there is that which the children can "get" on one level and the parents can "get" on another. The movies tend to be hit and miss ("Manhattan" vs. "Space", for example), but the holiday ones over the last decade or so had been winners. This one disappointed. More than anything, it was just rushed and pretty flat. The humor never really took off, although it came close at times, and there were some nice moments. However, the way most of the Muppets were brought in for quickie appearances, the including of the guest stars (Whoopi was worthless and Richard Griffiths just looked and sounded terrible as Santa), the plot seemingly jumping from A to D without much effort into giving us B and C to tie it together smoothly, even the songs didn't hook us like they normally do...this was just a pretty "eh" effort. I hope the writers put more real effort into it next time instead of just wanting to throw a holiday special with the Muppets on TV to do it. I've gone back and watched "The Muppet Christmas Carol" and "A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie" since this one aired and I've forgotten all about the mediocrity that is "Letters to Santa".

This is somewhat of a camp classic for a few reasons, one of which is undoubtedly Rochelle Hudson (who actually had quite a decent film career) and her absolutely stunning looks in the film. To her credit, she portrays the Jungle Goddess role with some actual effort too, utilizing very little in spoken word and a great deal of nonverbal communicating to the cameras (granted, a great deal of screaming too). The acting is actually not bad by the main characters, and the story's not too shabby either, especially considering this era's standards for such MST3K-ish fare such as this film. However, it's an hour long and it doesn't drag at all, plus it's admittedly fun watching the bad guy get his come-uppance from both the main character and a gorilla buddy of the Jungle Goddess. The film's also quite funny at times, with Stitch actually bringing a taxi driver, cab and all, on the African expedition, and some callback dialogue that never seems forced. Anyone throwing an "old, bad movie marathon" party should track this one down.

Well, let's face it: a movie from the 1940's about a white gorilla (who's actually yellow on the packaging, but let's not obsess over details here) isn't likely to be Oscar material, and the Razzies didn't exist yet so that's out too, but if you're going into this with an open mind and appreciating of suckdom, then you can sure find worse ways to lose 70 minutes of your life.

White Pongo is in the jungle, and the hunters all are trying to find him, since he's the missing link between man and ape, or something to that effect. Among the expedition are your obligatory hottie, your obligatory guy with a hidden agenda, and your obligatory hero undercover, who ultimately stops the obligatory guy with a hidden agenda and ends the film liplocked with the obligatory hottie. After you sit through 15-20 minutes of complete filler such as boats going down rivers, stock footage of real Africa (as opposed to "Hollywood Africa" that takes up most of the film) and what is apparently the only jungle noise that the sound technicians could come up with (some sort of monkey chirping that you'll be hearing in your sleep after listening to it for the duration of the film), White Pongo ultimately kills the obligatory guy with a hidden agenda, then saves the obligatory hottie who has been kidnapped by an unnamed evil gorilla by having the worst five minutes of gorilla brawling ever put to cellulite. However, this is made more fun by the audio track on the Alpha Video DVD being at least a full minute behind the video for a good six or seven minutes of the latter part of the film, so at some points it seems like the gorillas are girlie-screaming and running through a pile of crunchy jungle on two feet. Anyway, WP wins the battle, and his reward is being caged up and brought back to America by the obligatory hero undercover. Hey, who said life was always fair, right? To be honest, there actually was at least an attempt at a coherent storyline in this film, so I can appreciate that end of it. Beyond that, though, White Pongo is just another wonderfully awful film for all of us who can enjoy the worst Hollywood could give us in those days gone by.

When this film came out I'd only read the reviews for it in magazines, and every review roared about how this was such a groundbreaking and amazing movie. I only knew there was a hot redhead running a lot. Fortunately, I decided to expand my horizons and gave it a rent on video when it was released. I brought it home, watched it, and went right to the mall the following day to purchase both the DVD and CD soundtrack for "Run Lola Run".

I'm a fan of dance/trance music, so the soundtrack certainly worked for me. I'll say no more on that.

As for the film itself, the story is told three ways with three endings and three series of events that occur during the 20 minutes in question. The third one, it would seem, is the happy ending. Of course, one can decide for him/herself which may have been the "real" ending. Whatever the case, and whatever the choice, you are taken on an 80-minute thrill ride the likes of which you have never been taken on before. Between the frantic pacing, the constant running of Lola, the thumping soundtrack and the race against time, this is simply a film that will leave you exhausted when it's over. And then you'll want to see it again.

The DVD does have an English dub, and it's actually a good one, but see it in German, read the subtitles and experience this film the way it was meant to be experienced. Tykwer and Potente really were magical together (see their follow-up, "The Princess and the Warrior", for a more traditional yet equally-satisfying movie) and this movie just rocks my world.

As a wrestling fan of over 20 years (and someone who's even been inside the business on the independent level), I had a great interest in this documentary. I was pleasantly surprised to learn a LOT that I didn't know while watching this, and moreso, I just have such respect for the "golden age" that it was thrilling for me to see these women, hear these stories, and see them get a spotlight many of them never have gotten before because of the way the business was back in the day.

That said, it's not a flawless documentary. As has been mentioned by others, it's put together in a very choppy way where it seems the film was made, cut, shuffled, reglued and ran through the projector. Suddenly, there we are at the Gulf Coast Reunion where practically everyone who's been interviewed through the movie (and several others) are present. And wow, I thought Sputnik Monroe was dead. ((EDIT 01/26/07-->Sadly, since this comment was written, Sputnik Monroe has passed away.)) My other problem with the film probably won't even be noticed to a lot of people who see this unless they know "the rest of the story" as far as what goes on behind the scenes and "in real life" in the wrestling business. That problem is that some stories aren't quite as factual as they are presented. The biggest example of this is when The Fabulous Moolah is saying how she tried to get a title shot with the woman that beat her in the 1980's, Wendi Richter, but Wendi wouldn't do it and was ducking her. So Moolah says that's why she dressed as The Spider and wound up beating Wendi for the title that way. In reality, Wendi got a big head and wanted a ton of money to resign with the WWF, so the WWF pulled a switch on her and had Moolah dress as Spider and pin her. The referee counted the fall even though Wendi very clearly lifted her shoulders off the mat too! Yes, it was the Montreal screwjob before Montreal. (And if you enjoyed this movie but are not familiar with the Montreal screwjob, I highly recommend "Wrestling With Shadows", check it out on this site!) Moolah, like a few others, have an "old-school" mentality, so it's not always easy to tell when you're hearing fact VS fiction with some stories.

Be that as it may, despite the minor flaws this is a very enjoyable documentary. Any women or men who respect and enjoy strong women, athletics, "old-school", wrestling...hell, just about anyone should see this and they'll probably enjoy it, or at least learn from it and have a definite respect for these women. Definitely recommended!

When I first saw this film in the 1980's, I was in my middle teenage years and somewhat reluctant to see this since I considered myself grown up and out of the "Sesame Street/Muppets" age. I honestly don't remember if I liked it at the time or not. However, somewhere in college I watched this film again, and it wound up going (and staying) into my personal Best Films Ever collection.

This film is LOADED with humor that goes far above and beyond what one would have expected from the Muppets. I mean, obviously the Muppets always have appealed to adults and children because there's humor geared towards both generations. But come on...Janice is accidentally overheard telling someone "I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it IS artistic"...there's a joke from a father to a son that if the son in love with Kermit the Frog then the father doesn't want to hear it...Gonzo saves a chicken with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (sp?) and afterwards says "I think we're engaged now"...these and plenty of other moments in the film had me rolling. Add to that very smart dialogue, very smart New York/Broadway "wink wink" humor, the usual large amount of celebrity cameos and some really enjoyable songs that don't border on "kid-level cheesy" whatsoever...this film is a masterpiece! I don't throw "10"'s out on a regular basis...but this one deserves it. Over 20 years later, this film totally holds up, perhaps even more so. The Muppets never were and never will be again, as funny and smart and just plain brilliant as this film was and is. ---Q

Possible spoilers...

I love films. I love classic films. This film was released over 20 years before I was. My dad was surprised I'd never seen this one, and I finally gave it a rent last week. I don't know, maybe I just wasn't in a movie frame of mind? This film did nothing for me at all.

I've seen better from both lead performers. In fact, I'm rather surprised this is the one Bogey won the Oscar for. Once the romance blossomed, it just seemed I was watching this thing constantly waiting and wondering, "When's this going to get somewhere?" A round or two of the rapids, ducking German fort gunfire, getting through the muck, having their tiff after Bogey overindulged on his gin...all of this ultimately didn't keep my interest very deeply. Only in the last 15 minutes did I really feel fully attentive to the film, and in that same last 15 minutes were probably among the funnier moments of the film.

The cinematography was excellent, whether any or all of the animal footage was first unit or second unit or stock footage or whatever. I didn't not like the film overall, but it's nothing I'll be rushing to see a second time.