Change Your Image
saturnchick
1930s It Happened One Night The Wizard of Oz The Lady Vanishes The Most Dangerous Game
1940s Rope Kind Hearts and Coronets Double Indemnity Gaslight Casablanca Laura The Talk of the Town
1950s Singin' in the Rain Rear Window 12 Angry Men Witness for the Prosecution North by Northwest Touch of Evil The Caine Mutiny The Bridge on the River Kwai The Lavender Hill Mob Dial M for Murder
1960s The Graduate Cool Hand Luke Charade The Great Escape Lolita Hud My Fair Lady Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 2001: A Space Odyssey Rosemary's Baby
1970s The Godfather The Godfather II One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest The Sting All the President's Men Chinatown MASH Escape from Alcatraz Deliverance Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
1980s Back to the Future The Goonies Stand by Me The Breakfast Club Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Big Tootsie Ordinary People Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
1990s The Shawshank Redemption Saving Private Ryan Titanic Apollo 13 The Big Lebowski The Fugitive Good Will Hunting Goodfellas Braveheart
2000s Kill Bill Volume 1 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind The Departed Ocean's Eleven Doubt Mystic River Lord of the Rings Trilogy Into the Wild Gladiator Lost in Translation
2010s Inception True Grit The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) The Avengers The Wolf of Wall Street The Martian Argo Interstellar Spotlight
Mysteries & Thrillers Dead Again Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Memento Donnie Darko The Usual Suspects Primal Fear Fargo
Science Fiction and Fantasy Terminator 2: Judgment Day Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back The Matrix Gattaca Minority Report
Westerns The Shootist True Grit (1969) The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly The Searchers 3:10 to Yuma (2007) The Magnificent Seven Once Upon a Time in the West
War Films Three Kings Black Hawk Down Courage Under Fire Enemy at the Gates The Dirty Dozen
Romance Sleepless in Seattle When Harry Met Sally The Holiday Pretty Woman Something's Gotta Give Before Sunrise
Foreign The Bicycle Thief City of God Run Lola Run Oldboy
Comedies Arthur Naked Gun: From the Files of the Police Squad Clueless Bullets over Broadway The Hangover Forgetting Sarah Marshall Ted The Heat Mean Girls Dazed & Confused Midnight Run
Horror Halloween (1978) High Tension Poltergeist Scream The Descent The Shining Don't Look Now 1408 The Sixth Sense The Omen (1974) Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) The Wicker Man (1973)
Sports *61 Rudy The Natural Invincible Miracle Rocky IV
Documentaries Capturing the Friedmans Spellbound Touching the Void Riding Giants March of the Penguins The Imposter Dogtown and the Z Boys Mad Hot Ballroom The War Room
Animated Up The Lion King Toy Story Finding Nemo
Musicals Chicago West Side Story Grease
Christmas Films A Christmas Story A Christmas Carol (1951) It's a Wonderful Life The Bells of St. Mary's
Action & Adventure Die Hard True Lies The Rock Raiders of the Lost Ark Air Force One The Bourne Trilogy Speed Beverly Hills Cop Iron Man Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Chick Flicks The First Wives Club Steel Magnolias Sex in the City Bridesmaids Terms of Endearment
Other Guilty Pleasures The Wraith Alpha Dog The Warriors Salt The Lost Boys Karate Kid (1984) The Fast and the Furious A League of Their Own The Beast Must Die
My Top 20 TV Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer House of Cards Freaks and Geeks Boston Legal I Love Lucy Orange is the New Black The Golden Girls 30 Rock Band of Brothers CSI: Crime Scene Investigation The Sopranos Survivor Breaking Bad The Wire South Park The Twilight Zone Mad Men Top Chef Modern Family Law & Order
My Favorite Actors & Actresses
Tom Hanks
Robert DeNiro
Kevin Spacey
Jack Nicholson
Paul Newman
Bill Murray
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Jack Lemmon
Meryl Streep
Kate Winslet
Julia Roberts
Edie Falco
Emily Blunt My Favorite Directors
Alfred Hitchcock
The Coen Brothers
Christopher Nolan
Martin Scorsese
David Fincher
Quentin Tarantino
Stanley Kubrick
Steven Speilberg
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
The Get Down (2016)
Disappointing
I really wanted to like this. Having been born in NYC in 1977, I've always been fascinated with movies and documentaries that portray the era.
There are some redeemable qualities of the show: the music, of course, as well as Jimmy Smits' and Shameik Moore's performances. However, Luhrmman really drops the ball when it comes to over-stylizing the show. Anyone who lived in late 70s/early 80s NYC will attest to the fact that most of the city was a crime-ridden wasteland. Luhrmann tries, unsuccessfully, to capture this but the tone is simply not gritty enough; there's no real "edge" to the show. The Warriors, in all it's campy glory, gives a far better snapshot of the grittiness of the time, both through tone and through cinematography. The Get Down is campy at times, but in a bad way. For example, I'm baffled by Shaolin Fantastic's bizarrely and randomly choreographed Kung Fu flourishes. Perhaps I'm missing something here - it seems much more like a nod to Wu Tang Clan - but they didn't really arrive on the scene for about another decade and a half, and in a totally different borough, Grasshopper.
Additionally, I think that Luhrmann (or perhaps the scriptwriters) insert the cultural, political, and social happenings of the time as purely incidental. Yes, there was a mention or two of Star Wars, which debuted in May of '77, and an episode was sort of framed around the Great Blackout of July 1977. However, there were a number of misleading scenes: for example, the riots and looting that took part largely in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Yes, there was looting beyond those perimeters, but Bushwick was literally burned to the ground. During another scene we see two characters playing an Atari 2600, which wasn't released until September 11, 1977. Music that was not released in 1977 is utilized during some scenes.
Part of the problem likely has to do with the fact that Luhrmann is so culturally disconnected from the subject matter. He was a 14 year old boy living in Australia at the time; he can't properly recreate the pressure-cooker atmosphere that was happening in late 70s NYC because he didn't experience it, and likely doesn't really know anyone who did either. Mad Men did an amazing job of incorporating cultural milestones to frame the narrative of the show. Similarly, The Wackness perfectly encapsulates what it felt like growing up in the city in the summer of 1994. When I watch movies like Dazed and Confused and Stand By Me or the TV shows Freaks and Geeks and The Wonder Years, I feel like I'm transported to those periods of time in small town America. Unfortunately, The Get Down isn't doing it for me, and although it's flawed, Spike Lee's Summer of Sam does a better job of portraying the Summer of 77 by acknowledging touchstone events like the Son of Sam murders, the emergence of punk rock, CBGBs, the 77 Yankees, and Studio 54. All these amazing musical genres were burgeoning at the exact same time, and it's a shame that The Getdown treats most of it like it's inconsequential.
Lastly, I really have to say that Jaden Smith is total joke in this. His "character" becomes slightly more tolerable in the later episodes, but he clearly lacks the acting chops to be able to keep up with the rest of the cast. I say "character" using quotation marks since part of me seriously suspects that his ridiculous hippy-dippy new age dialogue has been lifted right out of his Twitter feed.
Final Analysis (1992)
Bad Script + Bad Acting = Bad Movie
Boy, oh boy....I don't know where to begin when attempting to describe this train wreck of a movie. Basically, Richard Gere portrays a Freudianesque psychiatrist treating a disturbed young woman (Uma Thurman) who suffers from recurring nightmares coupled with an obsessive compulsive disorder that reveals glimpses of her secret past. Enter the aforementioned patient's bombshell (but un-happily married) sister (Kim Basinger) along with her "Greek Orthodox gangster" husband (Eric Roberts), and let the thinly-veiled intrigue begin!! Laced with poorly executed homages to Hitchcock classics such as Vertigo, in addition to every bad movie cliché' imaginable, this movie is predictable from beginning to end. The acting is sub-par all around, and the plot holes are enormous. (SPOILERS HEREAFTER) Are we, as the viewer, really supposed to believe that the San Fransisco Police Department and District Attorney's Office would not take the time to investigate a person's background after they have charged them with homicide? Or that a friend of the defendant can testify as an expert witness? To sum things up, this movie is laughable and ridiculous. Don't waste your time.
You Can Count on Me (2000)
Great movie, 8 1/2 stars
When I sat down to watch this movie, I did so reluctantly, keeping in mind the many over-hyped, critically acclaimed indie films that have left me wondering what all the fuss was about to begin with. Firstly, to anyone who is not too familiar with this picture, or is only mildly interested in seeing it, I suggest that you ignore the negative reviews it has received on this board, rent it and decide for yourself.
The quality of this movie is achieved in its subtlety. No, you will not encounter blatant philosophical questions about the uncertainty of life, the yearnings of the soul, or the demon within. What you will find is a wonderfully realistic representation of the complexities of human relationships. Both Linney and Culkin are brilliant, while Ruffalo and Broderick give very good supporting performances and provide a little comic relief. Really though, the charm of this movie lies in Terry and Sammy's steadfast loyalty and love for on another.
As far as character development goes, again this is achieved through subtlety. Not to say that we witness Terry or Sammy's complete metamorphosis before our very eyes, but they do manage to break free of any stock characterization that might have been implied earlier on (ie: Terry, the ne'er-do-well, rootless younger brother). Most of the character growth comes in very small doses, as we see Terry and Sammy's hidden sides being revealed through their conversations with one another, a local minister, and more importantly, Sammy's son. By the time the movie concludes, the characters have come full circle, except this time around the viewer gets the sense that these people have actually learned something. That is a rare commodity in movie making these days.
Feardotcom (2002)
The absolute worst movie I've ever been subjected to!
I don't know what disturbed me more-the lack of a decent plot or the fact that I actually sat through the entire movie up until the end credits. Yes, there are probably worse movies out there, but this is, by far, the worst movie that I've ever seen. A blatantly horrible rip-of of 2002's "The Ring", "feardotcom" makes absolutely no attempt at establishing a plot, nor does it provide any insight as to why these bizarre deaths are occurring in the first place. Was I supposed to believe that Stephen Dorff(Mike)and Natascha McElhorne(Terry)had become so enamoured with one another (in a matter of hours) that they were willing to risk life and limb to save the other? Horrible dialogue, terrible cinematography, and laughable acting (or lack thereof). It's really a wonder how this entire movie didn't end up on the cutting room floor. Stay far away from this garbage.