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cynthiacher-1
Reviews
Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)
Horrible people, horrible film
I don't understand the appeal of this movie. It's a study of ghastly people living in stunningly bleak circumstances who treat each other like crap. No one in the movie is even remotely attractive, likable or sympathetic. The characters ceaselessly scream at each other and argue endlessly. The foul language is interminable. I consider watching a movie that consists of bunch of worthless losers threatening and berating and abusing and having sex with each other a pure waste of time.
What is there to like about this film? Well, some say it's "funny" and "realistic." I don't find the pathological combativeness and immorality of the scummy characters "funny" at all. And so what if it's "realistic?" That doesn't make this depiction of low-class slum dwellers and their dreary, worthless lives enjoyable entertainment.
This movie is simply gross and disgusting. But judging from other comments that seems to be part of its charm!
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time
I went into this movie with high expectations; I assumed it would be charming, humorous, engaging. All those talented actors in it: Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Ed Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel...surely this must be a quirky, enjoyable movie. But oh my God, it was terrible (the person I saw the movie with thought so too).
The dialogue was witless and dull and hard to understand because all the characters speak in low monotones. They all seem quite depressed and dulled. There was not one single likable, interesting character in the film, with the possible exception of Ed Norton's besieged scoutmaster. Even the children are unlikeable, especially the two 12 year olds "in love." Suzie and Sam are not what you'd call a sympathetic pair of protagonists; they're both, as the film makes clear, very mentally disturbed children and are so remorseless, expressionless and lacking in affect as to appear nearly sociopathic. It doesn't seem like their relationship is based on anything resembling "love"; love brings happiness and contentment and even when they're together they seem listless and depressed and rarely even smile. Maybe they're drawn to each other simply because they are both such strange, damaged children. The scene where they tentatively engage in sex play is supposed to be amusing I suppose. But I found it cringe-worthy; these two are still CHILDREN and to watch them french kiss and hear that the boy got "hard" is grotesque, not funny.
The other children in the film don't come across much better; they all have the curiously flat, toneless voices that seem more suited to a jaded adult than a child (the children in this movie ALL seem more like adults than children) and none of them exhibits much in the way of personality, except for the "bad" (he might as well have "THE BAD KID stamped on his forehead) scout that gets seriously injured (he's stabbed near the kidney) by Suzie. The heroine of the film stabs another child with a pair of scissors...what a sweet girl! And then there are the things that make no sense at all. Why does Suzy immediately want an odd, unprepossessing boy that she doesn't know at at all to write to her? How did the bicycle get up in the tree? Why do the scouts, who previously had no liking for Sam at all, abruptly feel compassion for him (just because he's an orphan? these scouts don't strike me as a particularly sensitive and filled with empathy bunch) and band together to help him run away with Suzie again? How can Sam get struck by lightning and pop up with no ill effects at all? How is it possible that Sam, Suzie and Captain Sharp all survive intact after the church steeple they are on is completely demolished? Why is it so easy for Sam and Suzie to continue to see each other; all Sam does is sneak in and out of a window with the help of his now foster father (why does Sharp suddenly want to be a foster parent to a disturbed child?) Captain Sharp? Wouldn't Suzie's parents be very vigilant about her not having any more contact with Sam? It all makes no sense.
I thought about walking out on this movie, which is something I rarely do. I wish I had; this movie made me literally SICK! I left the theater with a pounding headache and a queasy stomach. Really, it was THAT bad.
Some people adore this film. All I have to say is that people who like this movie must like bad movies. Because this one really stinks.
Streets of Fire (1984)
Crap from the eighties
All the favorable, ecstatic comments about this movie must be coming from people who are for some bizarre reason are very, very nostalgic about the eighties. Because "Streets of Fire" is CRAP! This movie was supposed to be part of a trilogy of action films called "The Adventures of Tom Cody." But that didn't happen because the original flopped.
The movie was promoted as a "rock and roll fable", whatever the hell that is. A "rock and roll fable"...boy, that sounds stupid.
Michael Pare as "Tom Cody" is a very bland action hero. Nothing about him suggests anything interesting or compelling to watch.
Diane Lane is "Ellen Aim." As bland as Pare, she is also utterly unconvincing as a rock singer. But she does look good in her tight costumes, which is the reason she got the role I suppose.
One critic noted that even though it's always raining nobody ever has an umbrella.
The movie is rather like a long music video, kind of like "Flashdance", another rotten movie from the eighties. That one, equally as ludicrous as "Streets of Fire" was a big hit, go figure.
I don't understand the fondness for bad movies from the eighties. I thought the eighties produced an incredible amount of garbage in TV, films and music. "Streets of Fire" is a good example of the mindless garbage that passed for entertainment back then. I'm not saying it's any better now, but the eighties is in a class by itself when it comes to worthless dreck.
Kurt & Courtney (1998)
Anyone interested in Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love should see this
This is a disturbing documentary, but definitely worth seeing. A lot of the characters are strange and freaky, but then the lifestyle of the Cobains was strange and freaky. Some people say the oddballs interviewed in this movie have no credibility, but I disagree. I don't think they have the brains to make up the stuff they say happened.
I think the El Duce character was telling the truth. It's a little TOO coincidental that he was killed in an "accident" shortly after making his claim that Courtney Love offered to pay him to kill Kurt.
Kurt is shown briefly in the movie and seems heartbreakingly sweet.
But this movie mainly concentrates on Courtney Love. And she comes across as mentally unbalanced, deceitful, capable of anything. She's a horror story. One of the people interviewed who knew both Kurt and Courtney said she thought he killed himself to get away from her. I'd buy that! At one point, Love's father is interviewed. He said he hadn't spoken to Courtney lately, but her mother had. He said Courtney had told her that "she was getting married." Who to, he's asked. "Edward Norton", he replied. I know Love and Edward Norton used to "date." What the hell was HE thinking? Courtney Love did NOT want this movie to be released and tried to prevent it from happening. It's easy to understand why; it portrays her honestly. And she does NOT want people to know what a monster she really is.
Rent it!
An American Crime (2007)
Worthwhile film, but very flawed
I'm glad a movie was finally made about this case. The torture murder of Sylvia Likens is one of the worst crimes ever committed in the United States and I gather practically no one who saw this movie had ever heard about it.
The movie had its good points and bad. I'll start with the bad.
The movie downplayed the torture of Sylvia. It was much, MUCH worse than depicted. I've heard reviewers say that it is a mercy that was so; what happened in reality would be almost beyond endurance. I disagree. I wish the movie HAD shown more of what actually occurred. I think it should be known just how evil the sadistic Gertrude and her band of savage children (both her own and neighborhood cronies) were towards the helpless, defenseless Sylvia. They denied her food. They denied her water. They denied her use of the toilet, and then punished her for soiling herself. She was frequently kept naked or only clothed in dirty underwear, and forced to display her nakedness to the neighborhood thugs who came to the house to "play" with her by throwing against walls. Gertrude kicked her in the crotch more than once. She was burned with a cigarette 150 times. She was dunked in scalding water. She was punched, slapped, beaten across the face with a curtain rod. She was called a bitch, a slut, a whore, subjected to endless verbal abuse and humiliation. And of course she had the words "I am a prostitute and proud of it!" carved into her belly with a hot needle, along with, for some reason, the number 3. I was disgusted at how the movie portrayed Sylvia at her death; she lies there, her pretty face pale but unmarked. In reality her face was covered with bruises, scrapes, burned skin, her lips in shreds. In her death agonies, she chewed her own lips in half. I wish people KNEW what this innocent child went through.
The movie was indeed sympathetic to Gertrude. The director said that was not the case; he said what he did was attempt to "humanize" her, because after all, she WAS a human being. No, she WASN'T! She was inhuman, a sociopath. She took pleasure in torturing the girl; it seemed to be a kind of stress reliever for her. As for her being poverty-stricken, sick and saddled with 7 children, well, all of that was her own doing. She made her own bed, so she had to lie in it. She never expressed remorse for her crime; throughout her trial she denied everything. Many years later, all she was say by way of apology was "I'm not sure what role I had in it... because I was on drugs. I never really knew her... I take full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia." In her cell, Gertrude mouths "I'm sorry" to Sylvia's apparition. This scene really angered me. Gertrude was never, NEVER sorry.
Gertrude's house was a sinister-looking, run-down structure, filthy inside. The movie makes it look rather charming. And Gertrude's children were nowhere near as clean and well-dressed and attractive as in the film.
The "escape" sequence was ridiculous.
Now the good: Ellen Page's performance.
The eerie female singing on the soundtrack which is truly haunting.
The final image of Sylvia, riding the merry-go-round at the carnival for all eternity, the only place she ever felt "safe."
Masters of Horror: Sick Girl (2006)
Tries very hard, but fails
This episode of the "Masters of Horror" series tries very hard to be both amusing and horrifying but doesn't quite manage to be either.
The "humor" is very heavy-handed and Angela Bettis's character "Ida Teeter" is a caricature, not a human being. The plot line is promising (a strange, huge bug running loose that can devour mammals and impregnate (!) them) but ultimately goes nowhere. Bettis's co-star Erin Brown (aka Misty Mundae. a soft porn/horror scream queen) tries to make the most of her role as the ditsy, pixie-obsessed "Misty Falls", but leaves no major impression.
The whole relationship between the two women seems unbelievably far-fetched. Ida is not particularly attractive, looks much older than Misty, and is very weird and socially-unskilled, and yet Misty has been fixated on her, as it turns out, for YEARS! Misty seems pretty strange herself, but even so her obsession with Ida seems ludicrous. And why does the perfectly normal-seeming Max give the insufferable Ida the time of day, much less be her best friend? The land lady character seems to exist only to be "the bad person who deserved to get killed" role you see in countless unimaginative horror films. And Max is the second "friend of the protagonist" character to get killed that I've seen in the Master of Horror series. Is this some kind of formula that stories in this series must adhere to? I've seen two segments so far and both of them featured the nice friend of the protagonist getting destroyed by a monster. In "Sick Girl", the death of Max was gratuitous and served no purpose at all, except to provide some gore.
The ending were terrible, incredibly stupid even for a horror movie. Misty becomes this CREATURE, a "bug" of some kind, and the bug's mandibles (or whatever they have) have torn through her flesh (earlier Misty's ear became a bloody mush and fell off). She's no longer human. But at the end, she's perfectly normal and healthy looking and happily pregnant with the bug's offspring (as is Ida). HOW is it possible to go from having her flesh ripped apart from the inside to being whole again? Like I said, it's stupid even for a horror movie.
I'm going to watch two other segments of this series tonight. God, I hope they're better than this!
Freaks (1932)
One of the greatest cult films
This movie, although short and flawed, is a minor masterpiece. Incredibly ahead of its time, it was considered so offensive that it was banned for thirty years! Incredible! Oh, the story was sordid, but not much more sordid than a lot of other movies made during that time. What I think prompted the banning was the disgust people had for the real-life "freaks" in the film, who were only human beings, although physically and mentally handicapped. A lot of the film was cut; sadly the footage doesn't exist anymore. As it is, the film feels rather incomplete; something is definitely "missing". I saw this movie recently on TCM and the film still holds up. I'm especially charmed by Schlitze, one of the "pinheads". Schlitze, "the man's woman" was really a he! He wore dresses supposedly because it made it easier for him to go to the bathroom or made it easier to change his diapers (it's unclear how toilet-trained he was). Schlitze lights up the screen when he's on; he's like a funny, lovable, affectionate child. His smile could light up a room! And in the scene where Madame Tetrallini is telling her charges that God loves them Schlitze is hugging and patting her like he's trying to comfort HER. It's amazing that people would consider the cast of "Freaks" repulsive and unworthy. They were all exceptional human beings who made the best of what life had dealt them.
Willie the Operatic Whale (1946)
This movie broke my heart
This cartoon was featured in a Disney movie called "Make Mine Music" that had different segments. It's now shown as a separate cartoon most of the time, because it was the best of the segments. I saw this as a child; I remember Willie the Whale singing and thinking it was so cute and adorable. I was so rooting for Willie. And then came the ending, which was to say the least, shocking. Really, it was like getting kicked in the stomach. There was talk of "heaven" but that didn't make things any better. This cartoon is entertaining the but ending is something that might upset some children. It sure upset me. Really, it broke my heart, and it affects me the same way still.
Grave of the Vampire (1972)
Better than most films of this type
This is a low-budget vampire horror movie. But as such films of this type go, it's better than most. It has some genuinely disturbing, gruesome scenes and the story is unusual. It is definitely worth a watch. Of course there are the nit-pickers: "a vampire teaching night-school?" "a vampire raping and impregnating a woman?" As for the vampire teaching a night class...well, why not? Does every vampire have to be wealthy and aristocratic like Dracula or Louise from "Interview With The Vampire"? And true, an animated corpse is not capable of getting an erection and sperminating a human woman, but it's just a horror film folks, it doesn't HAVE to make complete sense. Actually that was a big problem I had with the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"; the vampires Angel and Spike looked like male models and would passionately french-kiss and make hot monkey love to Buffy. Traditional vampire folklore informs us that vampires have unbelievably bad-smelling breath, so I wouldn't think french-kissing one would be such a turn on. And vampires are DEAD, so they can't have sex. They can't have it! Their "sex" if you want to call it that, is biting into a neck and sucking blood. Their victim, under the hypnotic spell of the vampire, experiences something similar to sexual pleasure while being drained of blood. But no, vampires don't get hard-ons and don't father children. At least that's what all the available folklore on vampires says.
The Goodbye Girl (1977)
It's OK, but not great
This movie is sometimes amusing and contains some good acting by Richard Dreyfuss and Quinn Cummings, but it's also very annoying. Dreyfuss is good at doing this type of character but he also seems rather manic; he, Dreyfuss, is in fact bi-polar, which may account in part for this. Dreyfuss also had a rather serious problem with cocaine, and that too may in part account for his frenetic performance. Marsha Mason is totally irritating; no wonder all the men she gets involved with leave her! This movie derives part of its charm from the fact that the two romantic leads are not particularly young, attractive or likable, which is unusual for a romantic comedy. But that makes it harder for the view to feel sympathetic for the two; I quite frankly didn't give a hoot whether or not they got together or stayed together. And although the ending implies that Eliot is so smitten with Paula that he will never leave her, I tend to think that eventually he will get tired of this needy, immature woman. That little speech she gives him towards the end about how she's "grown up" doesn't ring one bit true, especially in light of what she does a little later, that is, standing out on the fire escape in the pouring rain in a sheer nightgown clutching his guitar and screaming "I LOVE YOU"! That kind of behavior you would expect from a lovesick teenager not a 33 year old woman who's "grown up". Overall I would say that this a rather silly diversion of a movie. And Dreyfuss did NOT deserve an Oscar for this. Richard Burton should have won that year.
The Seventh Sign (1988)
Very underrated movie; Jurgen Prochnow, wow!
Most critics wrote this movie off simply because it was a supernatural or horror film. I didn't have high hopes for it myself, but I watched it because I like the actor Jurgen Prochnow. And I was pleasantly surprised. The movie itself looks good; a lot of films of this type look cheap and flimsy, but not this one. The story was cohesive, suspenseful, eerie and had some truly skillful acting. There is the always good Michael Biehn as the husband and the two young actors Manny Jacobs and John Taylor are standouts. Even Demi Moore, an actress I normally find irritating, comes off well here. She played a pregnant woman and was pregnant herself, which certainly added a dimension to the nervous Abby. But it is Jurgen Prochnow who truly makes an impression; his eyes, his face, his voice are so expressive of the character. I won't reveal more, but let's just say a lot of actors have played this role, and this is one of the most believable interpretations of it that I've ever seen. Rent this movie!