This is the movie review item where you get to tell folks your impressions
of anything you've recently viewed on tape, television, or in the theatre. 
Feel free to grade 'em with stars, thumbs, numbers, letter grades, or
whatevers. 

Pssst, pass the popcorn, please.

161 responses total.

I just say THE LION KING, Disney's new smash hit.  It was brilliant!  So much
better than Aladdin (in my opinion)!!!  Some great stuff for kids and adults,
plus some wonderful messages about life, strength, family, etc!   Go see it!!
(The soundtrack is awesome too!)   * * * * * from me!
(I didn't even take my daughter with us to see it!)

There is another Grexxer out there that could beg to differ with you.
Maybe you should find him and get a debate going!

LION KING is very good, good enough to make you wish it was better.  Sadly,
it shows signs of having been assembled by a committee.  I think the music
is very typical, it opens with some fine scenes of african animals crossing
the veldt, backed with some absolutely wonderful Ladysmith Black Mambazo
style vocals.  I thought, "Wow, they've decided to draw upon one of the
most vibrant and beautiful traditions in modern music...african sound for
an african film."  But then the african chorus disappears into the
background and a standard smaltzy disney vocal takes over, without a hint
of the african style touching it.  Apparantly the african vocals were
added in to Elton John's score later, by the arranger, and it sounds like
that.  (For comparision, see Paul Simon's _Graceland_ score where the
african and western sounds are much more smoothly integrated.)

The same kind of problem runs though the whole film.  There is an  
ecological message, talking about the inter-relatedness of all life, but it
is mixed together with the old myth of the ecology reflecting the state of
the king in a sort of magical way.  These are not easily reconcilable
messages.  The animals are sometimes presented in a very naturalistic way,
and sometimes completely anthropomorphized.  The whole thing is a rather
uneasy mix.

Generally all of the subsidiary characters (notably the meerkat, the warthog,
and the babboon) are brilliantly done and thoroughly hilarious.  I guess
the sets of people in charge of writing and drawing them were small enough
to keep the committee syndrom under control.  The lions (with the partial
exception of the villian) are more boring.

A few films I rented in a recent video binge:

        MICKEY & NICKEY ***
                Starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes as two
                small-time hoods, one of whom has had a contract
                taken out on him.  They spend the night roaming
                the streets, re-thinking their friendship.
                Great acting by Falk and Cassavetes.  Directed by
                Elaine May.
        BAFFLED! -- (not ratable, dubious as to whether it was a real
                film)  Starring Leonard Nimoy (!) as a psychic racecar
                driver who travels to Jolly Ole England to help unravel a
                mystery dosed with the occult.  Simply some of the
                worst acting, writing and directing I have ever
                witnessed!  Stupendous!
        DOWN BY LAW ***
                Artful black & white film by Jarmusch, photographed
                by Wim Wender's button-man Robby Mueller.  Great little
                short story of three hoodlums, all framed for crimes that
                they either didn't commit or had no control over, who
                end up in the same jail cell together -- and who escape
                together.  Very amusing and funny.
        FEARLESS **1/2
                New film.  who survives a plane crash experiences
                a mystical re-alignment of his personhood, helps other
                survivors in coping.  Although this film, I feel, is too
                saturated with a Yuppie, New Age mentality to be of any
                real use, I must admit some of it was painful to watch 
                and somewhat moving.  The music (thankfully not New Age)
                adds much to the film.
        ORLANDO *
                Weightless, fruitless, hopeless excersize in postmodernism.
                Directed by Sally Potter, who uses Peter Greenaway's left
                and right arms (his incredibly talented art directors) to
                fashion an annoying, uninteresting Shaggoth of a film that
                lurches from 1600 to the present.  The music (New Age goop)
                is poured like tar onto the unfortunate viewer, who is then
                feathered by the horrendous screenplay and acting.  The star
                of the film, a passionless wraith who inexplicably changes
                gendre midway through the film, delivers cutesy, Spike Lee-ish
                quips directly into the camera throughout the unbearable
                length of this unwatchable, thoroughly annoying film.

Agree with your evaluations of "Mikey and Nicky" (note spelling) and
"Down by Law".  The title of the former is a play on the name of
director Mike Nichols, who was Elaine May's partner in their standup
comedy days.

[Item 19 in summer Agora is now linked as item 83 in the Arts conference.]

I recently saw UN COEUR EN HIVER (A Heart in Winter) and INDOCHINE on
video.  The first is described on the cover as "A Super Hot French Movie"
and the latter a "a senusual story of unbridled passion."  It appears to
be a marketing law that all French films must now be marketed as sex
films.  Though both films are very definately stories about love, neither
is particularly hot.  I thought they were both fine, wrenching films, each
in very different ways.

UN COEUR EN HIVER is about love affair (of sorts) between an expert violin
repairman and his boss's wife, a concert violinist.  But the repairman is
unwilling or unable to follow through on his love, hence the "heart in
winter."

INDOCHINE centers on a French woman who runs a rubber plantation in
colonial Vietnam, her adopted Vietnamese daughter, and a French naval
officer, who loves each in turn.  This is a classic love triangle in that
each of the three principles genuinely oves the other two, but the
colonial exploitation and the ensuing communist revolution is more than
a background for the love story.  The cast is not just caught up in events,
but becomes a mythological embodiment of the revolution.  It's a heck of
a fine film, and leaves one thnking that Vietnam is not only one of the
most traumatized nations of the world, but among the most beautiful.

Neither of these are in any sense "fun" films, but INDOCHINE especially is
very good.

("Fear Of A Black Hat" was slightly better than "CB4" as a parody of the
rap genre, but it still suffered from an inability to be funny with any
sort of regularity. Most of it was very tired. The music was better
sounding, though. I give it a C-.)

WOLF - the latest Jack Nicholson movie, is worth sitting still for a couple of
hours.  And the six bucks, of course. It was a lot more fun than I thought it
would be.  The wily and mischievous spirit of the deep woods comes to a big
city publishing editor.  Just in time too, since his life was beginning to
collapse in a stale, lifeless heap.  Has delightful touches of old-fashioned
pre-electronic Hollywood hokum, including glue-on dog-fur and mechanical
wolves.  If your mood is leaning toward the fun side of no more mister
nice-guy, you might find WOLF an amusing way to beat the heat.  Michelle
Pfeiffer does a turn as the late-model love interest, Christopher Plummer is
the gentlemanly but ominous presence of the almighty bottom-line, and James
Spader nearly steals the end of the show as the evil wolf-weasel.  

any one remember wthat movie with the song
"all we have in coommon is our doc. martin boots"
i forgot the name of it.....

NEW: 

THE FLINTSTONES.  My son saw it on Friday and gave it a B+.  

THE LION KING.  Aaron and Lauren weren't nearly as thrilled with 
it as they were with Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid.  
They were almost (dare I say it?) bored.  They give it a C.  

WOLF.  Celeste saw it on Friday while Aaron was watching The 
Flintstones.  She gives it a B+.  


ON TAPE: 

ACE VENTURA.  The adults didn't watch it, having been warned, but 
the kids (ages 8 and 10) gave it a solid A.  Who am I to argue?

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE.  More faithful to the novel than I'd been 
led to believe, but fatally miscast.  Also, filled with odd and 
annoying visual mannerisms.  C.  

CARLITO'S WAY.  Good Puerto Rican thugs vs. bad Puerto Rican 
thugs.  I was hoping someone would drop a big bomb on all of 
them.  D-.  

COOL RUNNING.  The kids watched this one three times in two days.  
They just *loved* it.  A+ from them.  B from me and Celeste.  

ETHAN FROME.  Smaller scale than Age of Innocence, but a much, 
much better movie.  Liam Neeson excellent in the title role.  A.  

FALLING DOWN.  For your theme, take the scene in Five Easy Pieces 
where Jack Nicholson (as a flaming asshole many people, quite 
rightly, take as their spokesperson) gives that poor waitress 
such a hard time.  Do a dozen variations on it, with the Jack 
Nicholson character armed and dangerous.  Call it a movie.  
Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall are quite good, considering.  
B for them, D over all.  

THE PIANO.  The little girl is adorable and rates an A all by 
herself, but making her perform in this movie is a form of child 
abuse.  C-.  

POETIC JUSTICE.  Atmospheric but dull.  C.  

THE RETURN OF JAFAR.  NG (not good)  The only music that was close to being
good was the stuff copied from ALLADIN (i.e. Arabian Nights, A Whole New World)
, the animation was bumpy, the plot was terrible, the jokes were stupid.  A
D+ at best.

When it comes to judging movies, Delizia and I seem to be at
somewhat opposite poles.  I thought "Carlito's Way" was an
interesting character study and very good moviemaking and
would give it a B+.  "The Piano" I'd give a B+ as well.  THe
other stuff on the "on tape" list I haven't seen, but maybe I'll
give "Ethan Frome" a look.

"Wolf"  B-  Interesting start but then it became quite ordinary.

I agree with Michael on "Carlito's Way". 

Re THE AGE OF INNOCENCE again (sorry to ramble on about it, but I 
really hated to see all that money spent for such a mediocre 
result): 

The miscasting I'm complaining about mainly has to do with the 
two female leads.  If you've seen the movie, you might remember a 
scene where May Welland wins an archery competition.  That scene 
typifies what's wrong with the movie.  

As played by Winona Rider, May Welland is a shy violet whose 
demeanor suggests childlike apologetic smiling and shrugging.  
You expect to see a man standing by her elbow, helping her with 
her bow and arrows.  But in the novel, May Welland is a big 
athletic blonde who wins the competition because she's a terrific 
competitor.  Winona Rider's May Welland seems to win by a lucky 
accident.  And when one of the male onlookers comments acidly, 
"That's the only bull's-eye *she'll* ever hit," instead of 
chuckling over what is actually the world's first Dumb Blonde 
joke, even the smartest moviegoer will think only that, gee, poor 
May is supposed to be both stupid *and* wimpy.  

Michelle Pfeiffer's Ellen Olenska is a little bit better, but she 
still isn't the dark, worldly, creature Edith Wharton made her.  
She's too much the Cat Woman - the big bankable Hollywood star 
gamely doing whatever her agent tells her to do.  

These casting contradictions infect the entire movie - all the 
relationships, every plot twist.  Nothing quite makes sense.  The 
only motive (apart from duty) you can think of for Newland Archer 
(Daniel Day Lewis) staying with May Welland, for example, is 
pity: he feels as sorry for her as we do.  But in the novel, May 
Welland was a babe-and-a-half, the Belle of New York, desired by 
every man who saw her, and Newland Archer was the lucky devil 
who got her.  Everyone envied him.  That's what makes his illicit 
attraction to the dark little outcast Ellen Olenska so 
paradoxical and so fascinating.  She appeals to something in his 
soul.  All of that got lost in the movie.  

if you all want to check out an incredible movie, then rent
"The empire of the sun".  It is a virtually unknown Speilburg film
about WWII, and a boys dream of flying.  IN my opinion, it is his
best work, by far.  Rent it.

Thanks for the explaniations, md.  I, too, thought the movie to
be only mediocre (I jokingly called it "The Age of Boredom").  Now,
I know why it turned out the way it did.

RE Wolf: It was almost as if this were two movies; one interesting one about
a book eeditor's efforts to deal with corporate politics and an unfaithful
wife, and one uninteresting movie about some werewolf silliness. ZZ.

Until I read Michael's description of AGE OF INNOCENCE, I'd forgotten I'd
seen it.  I guess I'll let that stand as my review.

I enjoyed SPEED for as long as it was on the screen.  In retrospect it has
all sorts of problems, but for a film like that, who cares?  What really
interested me about it was the preview for it.  That's a real piece of
work.  It quick cuts between all sorts of bits of scenes and dialogue
from all over the film in completely mixed up order, with dialogue from the
start of the film super-imposed on images from the end of the film.  But
the preview seems to fit together at least as coherently as the movie did.
It shows you many of the climactic scenes from the film, but changes the
context of each so much that it hardly gives anything away.  It's a neat
trick, snipping bits out of a film to make a different one.  So I strongly
recommend that you view the preview for SPEED while SPEED is still fresh in
your memory.

 Duel was Speilbergs best work, IMNSHO.

I agree that Return of Jafar is terrible in comparison to Aladdin.... If only
they had kept Robin Williams as the Genie!   The only movie I have seen in
recent weeks is "The Paper"  which is a grand movie, definitely worth
seeing.... though my date hated it because I paid more attention to the movie
than to him. *grin*  And, he really was a cute guy!

I thought "The Paper" was okay, but not great.  At the beginning it was pretty
good, and there were a lot of funny moments, but by the end it seemed really
corny and contrived.
"The Lion King", on the other hand, I really liked.  The music wasn't as good
as usual, but the animation was great, and there were a lot of funny parts and
interesting characters.  I'd recommend it.

The only thing I like about "The Lion King" is the Elton John song.

I really liked the Lion King, I thought Whoope Goldberg and Cheech Marin
were great and the animation, computer and otherwise was wonderful

I rented "Out Of Africa" last weekend.  I've read the book, and it was a rar
instance where the movie was every bit as satisfying as the book.  Wow.

impossible!  this i have to see!

I gave the kids their choice of a movie to rent a couple of days        
ago and they picked MY COUSIN VINNIE.  (Turns out they's seen it
on cable and wanted to see it again.)  The only things that might
make this movie unsuitable for some children are the language
and one scene toward the beginning when Vinnie is talking with
one of the young men in his jail cell and the young man thinks
Vinnie is another prisoner who wants to have anal or oral sex
with him.  The latter went right over the kids' heads.  The
language thing is no big deal in our house.  They know all the
words, and understand why they shouldn't use them.  

The movie is a farce, but a very funny one.  At least, we all
are in stitches when we watch it.  Aaron and Lauren are learning
some of the speeches, they've seen enough times by now.  It's
hysterical to hear them saying, "Are you suuuure?  How can you
be so sure?"  Or Aaron saying, in a perfect Brooklyn accent,
"Now I axe ya: woodja give a fuck what kinda pants da sunuvubitch
dat shot ya was wearin'?"  I give the movie an A.

I Love Trouble -- A-/B+
I liked Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts together in this film. They worked
well together.  There isn't any heavy message here; the film has a bit
of the old romantic comedy in it, and a big nod to North By Northwest.
I recommend it.

THE SHADOW has no idea what evil lurks in the hearts of men.  The movie
entirely failed to draw me in to the story.  It was visually appealing,
and one or two gags were amusing, but it all seemed contrived because the
characters just didn't work.

The main problem is the Shadow.  Once he was an evil man, now he is a
good man.  We don't know why he was evil in the first place, and we don't
know why he changed to good.  So that leaves us with know feeling for
the Shadow's motivations.  You can't get into his head, so you have to watch
the film as an object on the screen rather than getting involved in the
story.

I think the movie needed to get deeper into Cranston's head.  What drove
him to his crimes, what changed him, and how does he maintain the delicate
balance of good over evil.  Then you get a real story, with him fighting
the evil that still attracts him.  This story needs some psychological
depth to work, but it hasn't got any.

And anyway, I expected Lamont Cranston to look more like John Remmers.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
:-)

That's MUA-hahahahahahahaha!!!  8-)}

Too bad about _^HT_^Hh_^He _^HS_^Hh_^Ha_^Hd_^Ho_^Hw, though.  I'm a
sufficiently old fogey that I remember the original radio series, which I
listened to faithfully every Sunday afternoon when I was a kid.  Was thinking
of seeing the movie for a nostalgia fix, but it looks like it won't work for
that, so maybe I'll give it a skip.

Oh... Sorry.  :-)
Um, does it make me an old fogey because I've heard and remember the original
radio series, even if it wasn't the original broadcasts?

 I prefer the radio version of the shadow simply because it allows
one to form ones own pictures and all that.
Another good old radio show was X minus 14. Classic sci-fi.

Saw _The Lion King_ the day it came out.  We were disappointed in the
plot, which seemed in many ways to be promoting the message "might makes
right".  I liked the animation a lot, especially the opening scene with the
sunrise over the African desert.

Last night we saw a real live play at the Purple Rose theater in Chelsea.
The show we saw was _Stanton's Garage_.  A great mix of truly zany
characters at a garage in the middle of nowhere.  Great fun!  This was some
of the best theater I've seen in years.  Highly recommended!

Well, I've heard a few shadow episodes on tape, but I don't remember anything
about them.  I have no idea how the film compares to the radio show.  But
I doubt if you lose anything by waiting till it shows up on video.

They were talking to Alec Baldwin about _The Shadow_ on an interview show
the other day. He made a comment about how the old Warner Brothers cartoons
were ostenisbly aimed at kids, but that they had alot of witty humor buried
in them for the adults. He said that he felt that they had done the same thing
with _The Shadow_ and that he felt that adults would find things to like
in the movie too.
From his comments I have to draw the conclusion that they decided to make
the movie more for a younger audience. This would probably go along
way towards explaining the lack of psycological depth that jan mentioned.

I saw another interview with Baldwin in which he gave a reason for making
The Shadow.  He said that whenever he'd run into parents with children,
the parents would say to the child, "Now what do we know Mr. Baldwin from?"
and the kid would say "Beetlejuice."  Baldwin, I guess, wasn't particularly
proud of that movie (and he didn't have a very big part, anyway), so he
wanted to make a kid's movie he *was* proud of.
   I did want to see it, but now that I hear The Shadow doesn't look like
John Remmers, I'm not sure I want to anymore.

 Double feature at the ol Video ranch. 
 On the bill:
   Amazon Women on the Moon- the uncut version. All I can say is... Wow!
it is truly bizarre when you don't have those TV censors to inhibit ones
Directorial prowess. Noticed a few inside jokes between Kentucy Fried
Movie, and AWM. 1) Samuel L. Bronkowitz which is also in KFM, so it must
be a John Landis thing, also a few others that I won't give away.
  Second feature was:
  I am a fugitive from a chain gang- The 1932 movie. Powerful, Moving, 
and all true. Paul Muni could really act, I was truly impressed. 

Amazon women - a minus
I am a fugitive.... -A+

 I highly recommend both.

RE: The Shadow  Roger Ebert said that althought the he too felt the story 
        to be weak, it was still a great *looking* movie, with state of the
        art special effects.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss