When converting a book to film, it is generally a good idea to keep at least some of the author's intended tone or conveyed concepts, rather than ignoring the author altogether. While it is clear that the director had access to and went on the advice of Elinore Stewart's children, it is key to note that the children believed their mother to be a complete liar in regards to the good, enriching, strengthening experiences of homesteading her land. The book details her life on her and her husband's adjoining homesteads in the vast Wyoming frontier; she chronicles daily adventures with her numerous friends and acquaintances, though they lived dozens of miles apart. The film, however, takes a standard stance for the time it was made, portraying this woman's experience as harsh, unforgiving, and nearly pointless. Perhaps the director was bringing some of his Vietnam War experiences with him to this movie (as some film aficionados have said), but it seems to be a lousy excuse for taking all the joy and beauty of the book and twisting it into a bleak, odious landscape devoid of friends or hope. Don't waste your time with this movie; read the book instead.


One of the most disgusting films I have ever seen. I wanted to vomit after watching it. I saw this movie in my American History class and the purpose was to see an incite on the life of a farmer in the West during the late 1800's. What we saw were pigs being shot and then slaughtered, human birth, branding. Oh and at the end there was a live birth of a calf and let me tell you that the birth itself wasn't too bad, but the numerous fluids that came out drove most people in my class to the bathroom. The story itself was OK. The premise of the story is a widow and her daughter and they move to the west to be a house keeper of this cowboy. They live a life of hardship and it is an interesting a pretty accurate view of life in the West during the late 1800's. But if you have a choice, do not see this movie.


I realize that living in the Western Plains of Wyoming during the 1900s was brutal, in fact, it probably is still brutal today, but was it monumental enough to transform into a seemingly "made-for-TV" movie? Also, women's rights were still budding in this nation during this time, so to find an independent woman determined to start fresh in this harsh territory, and still show the realism of the era  would it make for good viewing? Honestly, I don't know. I have thought about this film for the past two days, and I still can't seem to muster the strength to say that it was a horrible film, yet I can truthfully tell you that it wasn't the greatest I have ever seen. From several hodgepodge styles of acting, to two mismatched actors playing devoid of emotion character, to some of the most gruesome PG rated scenes to ever come out of late 70s cinema, it is hard to fully get a good grasp on Heartland. Was it good? Was it bad? That may be up for you to view and decide yourself, but until then, here are moments I enjoyed and desperately hated!

This film continues to be a struggle in my mind because there were some very interesting scenes. Scenes where I wasn't sure what the director was doing or which direction he was headed, but somehow still seemed to work well as a whole. I thought the story as a whole was a very interesting, historical tale. I do not know much about living in Wyoming, especially during the early 1900s, so this film captured that image in my mind. The thought of very cold winters, no neighbors for miles upon miles, and this Polaroid-esquire view untouched by corporate America. It was refreshing to witness and sheer breathtaking to experience (though the television). There were scenes that really stood out in my mind, like the cattle-branding scene, the pig slaughtering scene, and the saddening homesteader that didn't survive their journey, that just brought a true sense of realism to this story. Director Richard Pearce did a great job of bringing the view of Wyoming to the viewers, but I am not sure he brought decent players to accompany the view.

While I will constantly compliment the scenery of this film, I had trouble coping with the actors that seemingly walked on the set and read their lines from cards on the side. Rip Torn seemed out of place in his role as Clyde Stewart, a loner that somehow finds a connection with Conchata Ferrell's Elinore Randall. The two as actors have no chemistry at all. Their scenes that they share together are pointless and honestly void of any emotion. The pregnancy scene nearly had me in stitches because of the way these two "veteran" actors portrayed it. The brave Elinore does what she has to do to get the child out of her, while Clyde gives an approving nod when she is done. This is love? Was it supposed to be love? I don't know, I think with stronger characters we would have seen a stronger bond, but with Torn and Ferrell, it felt like two actors just playing their parts. Other scenes that just seemed to struggle in my mind were ones like when the frozen horse "knocks" on the door for food or shelter, the constantly fading and growing compassion that Clyde had for Elinore's daughter (I just didn't believe it), the lack of true winter struggle, and the entire land scene. The land scene especially because I needed more explanation on what Elinore was doing, why she was doing it, and why Clyde would build her a house if they were married! It was these simple events that if taken the time to explore, would have made for a stronger film.

Overall, I will go middle of the road with this feature. There were definitely elements that should have been explored deeper, such as the relationship between these two strangers and the ultimate homesteading goals of Elinore, but they were countered with some beautiful scenes of our nation. These panoramic scenes which, in the span of 100 years, have changes from vast mountains to enormous skyscrapers. While there were some brilliant scenes of realism (starring cattle and pigs), I just felt as if we needed more. Depth was a key element lacking in this film, which was overshadowed by marginal acting and a diminishing story. Pearce could have dove deeper into this untapped world, but instead left open loopholes and clichéd Western characters. Ferrell carried her own, but Torn was completely miscast. Decent for a viewing, but will not be picked up again by me.

Grade: ** out of *****


That's what my friend Brian said about this movie after about an hour of it. He wasn't able to keep from dozing off. I had been ranting about how execrable it was and finally I relented and played it, having run out of adjectives for "boring".

Imagine if you will, the pinnacle of hack-work. Something so uninspired, so impossibly dreadful, that all you want to do after viewing it is sit alone in the dark and not speak to anybody. Some people labor under the illusion that this movie is watchable. It is not, not under any form of narcotic or brain damage. I would ONLY recommend this to someone in order to help them understand how truly unbearable it is. Don't believe me? Gather 'round.

Granted, as a nation, we in America don't always portray Middle Eastern peoples in a tasteful manner. But how about a kid in a sheik outfit bowing in salaam-fashion to a stack of Castrol motor oil bottles? You'll find that here. GET IT? THE ARAB WORSHIPS OIL. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Having the kid fly planes into a skyscraper would've been more appropriate. Who in their right mind would think that was a funny joke? It's not even close to "cleverly offensive". It just sucks and makes you want to punch whomever got paid to write that bit in the face.

In the middle of the film, a five-man singing group called the "Landmines" takes the stage at an officers' ball. Okay- are you ready? The joke is THEY SING TERRIBLY AND OFF-KEY. Why did I write that in caps also? Because the joke is POUND, POUND, POUNDED INTO YOUR HEAD with a marathon of HORRENDOUS sight gags. They start off mediocre enough; glasses cracking, punch tumblers shattering... then there is, I am 100% serious, a two-frame stop-motion sequence of A WOMAN'S SHOES COMING OFF. You read that correctly- the music was so bad, in one frame, the woman's feet have shoes on. In the very next- the shoes are off!!! Get it, because the music was so bad, her shoes came off! What the F????

Then there is an endless montage of stock footage to drive home the point that the SINGING IS BAD. If any human being actually suffered through this scene in the theater without running like hell, I would be astonished. This movie is honestly like a practical joke to see how fast people would bolt out the doors. Robert Downey Sr. directs comedy the way his son commands respect by staying drug-free. Badly. Other things to watch out for:

1. The popular music shoehorned in wherever possible. Every time Liceman appears, a really inappropriate Iggy Pop song plays. Plus all the actors do their best to act like it got really chilly for some reason.

2. Barbara Bach's criminally awful accent. She sounds like she's trying to talk like a baby while rolling a marble around on her tongue. There is no nudity, and there are several scenes where the boys all moan and writhe from a glimpse of her cleavage, like they're in a community school acting class and they've been directed to act like aroused retarded people.

3. Liceman feeds his revolting dog a condom. Remember; when this movie came out throwing in "abortion" and "condom" was seen as "edgy".

4. Tom Poston plays a mincing, boy-hungry pedophile, back when Hollywood thought "pedophile" and "homosexual" were one in the same. Flat-out embarrassing.

5. Watch the ending. Nothing is wrong with your VCR. That is actually the ending. Tell me that doesn't make you want to explode everyone who's ever made any movie, ever.

Watch this at your own risk. Up The Academy has been known to actually make other movies, like The Jerk or Blazing Saddles, less funny simply by placing the videotape near them.


The only thing I remember about this movie are two things: first, as a twelve year old, even I thought it stunk. Second, it was so bad that when Mad magazine did a parody of it, they quit after the first page, and wrote a disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying that they had completely disavowed it.

If you want to see great sophomoric comedies of this period, try Animal House. It's so stupid and vulgar it lowers itself to high art. Another good selection would be Caddyshack, the classic with the late Rodney Dangerfield and Bill Murray before he became annoyingly charming, with great lines like greens keeper Carl Spackler's "Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers they'll lock me up and throw away the key."


A stale "misfits-in-the-army" saga, which half-heartedly attempts to be both surreal (the foreign subtitles) AND vulgar (the flatulence gags), but just ends up being a mix of many different kinds of humor, none of them followed very successfully. Barbara Bach, the Bond Girl from "The Spy Who Loved Me", has only two or three brief scenes. What a waste! (*1/2)


I used to LOVE this movie as a kid but, seeing it again 20+ years later, it actually sucks. Up The Academy might have been ahead of it's time back in 1980, but it has almost nothing to offer today! Movies like Caddyshack and Stripes hold-up much better today than this steaming dogpile. No T&A. No great jokes except for the one-liners we've all heard a million times by now.

I recently bought the DVD in hopes that it would be the gem I remembered it being. Well, I was WAY off! The soundtrack had only 2-3 widely-recognizable hits (not the smash compilation others had mentioned) and the frequent voice-overs were terrible. The only thing that was interesting, to me, was predicting what the character's lines were before they said them. Yep, I watched this movie that much back then!

The only reason I am writing this review is to give my two cents on why this movie should be forgotten, sorry to say. :(


Mad Magazine may have a lot of crazy people working for it...but obviously someone there had some common sense when the powers-that-be disowned this waste of celluloid...the editing is el crapo, the plot is incredibly thin and stupid...and the only reason it gets a two out of ten is that Stacy Nelkin takes off some of her clothes and we get a nice chest shot...I never thought I would feel sorry for Ralph Macchio making the decision to be in this thing, but I do...and I REALLY feel bad for Ron Leibman and Tom Poston, gifted actors who never should have shown up in this piece of...film...at least Mr. Leibman had the cajones to refuse to have his name put anywhere on the movie...and he comes out ahead...there are actually copies of this thing with Mad's beginning sequence still on it...if you can locate one, grab it cuz it is probably worth something...it's the only thing about this movie that's worth anything...and a note to the folks at IMDb.com...there is no way to spoil this movie for anyone...the makers spoiled it by themselves...


Before I comment on this movie I just watched on YouTube, I have to admit that the reason I checked this out was to rewatch something I first saw on the TV ads in 1980: Barbara Bach's cleavage. And since the movie received an R rating, I expected to see her nude. Alas, no dice for her or of the other gorgeous actress that appeared here: Stacey Nelkin who's supposed to be a teen but was actually 20 when she made this. Seeing her in a bra and panty and later in a belly dancer outfit was just as arousing as Ms. Bach. They provide some of the scattered laughs this movie provides. In fact, I don't blame Ron Leibman for having his name removed from the credits since his role as the tight-fisted Liceman is pretty embarrassing though I did like the "seduction" scene he did with Ms. Nelkin. This also happens to be the debut of Ralph Macchio who's the loner among the misfits sent to an academy school. The others are a black kid who really loves his stepmother and Ms. Bach, an Arab who worships motor oil, and a politician's son who loves his girlfriend Candy (Nelkin's character) so much, he risks sneaking in the middle of the night see her in the girls academy. Among the supporting cast, Tom Poston plays a swishy character named Sisson who I found partly amusing. With a screenplay by Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses and direction by Robert Downey Sr. (whose son Robert Downey Jr. has a cameo early on in a soccer scene), Up the Academy is uneven with the politically incorrect humor but unless you're really offended at the scatological and sexual content, this is actually a pretty harmless comedy that Mad Magazine and its trademark cover boy-Alfred E. Newman-shouldn't be ashamed of even though they once had their name and character taken off the picture...P.S. Another one of the "misfits" was Harry Teinowitz who was born in my birth town of Chicago, Ill. He played Rodney Ververgaert. He also says one of my favorite lines: "I'm trying to come."


There are bad movies, terrible movies even boring movies...I can watch most and put up until the end, not this time. Avoid this like the plague, annoying music throughout, terrible editing, no comedy, its tackier than a novelty mug...My missus wanted to watch this thinking it would be Legally Blonde material or something kind of watchable, but never better than average, chick flick. Its the first time she was begging me to push the stop button.

The Girls, well, they were not great to start with (Denise done OK in Starship Troopers and Wild things) but you have sank to the gravel. I feel like a mug having spent 30 minutes on this...Pamela Anderson is almost unrecognisable after much construction work to her face.

Please take my advice if you want to avoid wasting valuable oxygen and brain cells ranting at the utter mince that is on your screen.


How could I best express my feelings about this movie: hideous? a headache? lack of coherent writing? plain stupidity? Try all of the above for this travesty. And that just for the direction.

Story? Well I guess there is a story. Two dumb blondes look for a job after they crash a plane into a golf course. They are mistaken for a 'world renounced assassin' (sarcasm) and are 'hired' by two 'mobsters'. One thinks "taking him out" means a date, and the other gets the minor actor she dreams of. And of course, the turtle reserve for the farting turtle, that they build with the casino winnings.

Sounds likes all this could be funny? Guess again. They try to make it funny, but its not. Filming sequences aren't well done. I've seen better filming in Hong Kong movies. Visuals are average for a late 80s film. But the problem is that its a 2007 movie.

Not worth my time to ever watch this again. It still doesn't beat Danny Glover's "Out" movie from the early 80s as the worst movie of all time, but then again that film is in a class of its own. "F"


When I was at the movie store the other day, I passed up Blonde and Blonder, but something about it just seemed like it could possibly be a cute movie. Who knows? I mean, I'm sure most people bashed Romy and Michelle before they saw it, Blonde and Blonder might have just been another secret treasure that was passed up. But when I started watching it: Executive Producer Pamela Anderson, wow, I knew I was in for something scary. Not only that, but both of what were considered the pinnacle of hotness: Pam Anderson and Denise Richards, not to offend them, but they were not aging well at all and they're playing roles that I think were more meant for women who are supposed to be in their 20's, not their 40's. The story was just plain bad and obnoxious.

Dee and Dawn are your beyond stupid stereotypical blonde's, they really don't have a clue when it comes to what is going on in the world, it's just really sad. But when the girls are somehow mistaken for murder assassins, the cops are on their tale and are actually calling the girls geniuses due to their "ignorance is bliss" attitudes. They are set up to make a "hit" on a guy, and they think they're just going to "show him a good time", but the real assassin is ticked and wants the case and to kill the girls.

Denise and Pam just look very awkward on the screen and almost like they read the script the day before. I know that this was supposed to be the stupid comedy, but it was more than stupid, it went onto obnoxious and was just unnecessary. Would I ever recommend this? Not in a million years, the girls are just at this point trying to maintain their status as "sex kittens", it's more a sign of desperation and Blonde and Blonder is a huge blonde BOMBshell.

1/10


This movie is not in anyway funny, it tries to be funny with it's lame humor, which is so dry and boring that the movie is just 2 hours of torture. Throughout the whole movie i was thinking one thing, "when is this gonna end". One thing you have to hand to them, is that they do have a very few mildly funny moments, which is also why i gave it a whole 2 stars. It is unoriginal and uses up almost every old blonde joke in the book, even the ones that wasn't funny the first time. It basically is a movie to belittle blondes and to record the whole repetoir of blonde jokes.

To sum it all up, this movie is blonde humor gone bad, it is not worth paying any amount of money to watch, it is just that bad.


Blonde and Blonder was unfunny.Basically, it was a rip-off girl version of Dumb and Dumber, but less funny, and they used too much background noises and music.WAY TOO MUCH BACKGROUND NOISES AND MUSIC IF YOU ASK ME!!!!It starts out immensely boring, and TOTALLY inane.It doesn't pick up pace anywhere soon, and I was feeling more frustrated as this nonsense carried on.Maybe, the only thing that saved me from giving this movie a 1 was the last 30 minutes.I found it somewhat entertaining and interesting as it neared the end, but that was the only part.Also, I couldn't help but like Pamela Anderson and Denise Richard's characters a little.Even though this movie didn't get any laughs from me, it kept my attention.I wouldn't say to completely avoid this movie, but there are thousands of better films for you to spend your time and money on than Blonde and Blonder.


This has got to go down as almost one of the worst movies of all time. Awful acting, awful script... and they were the good points! One to Definitely miss! The jokes, if you could call them that, were so predictable as to be pathetic. Pamela Anderson is still relying on her body to detract from the fact that her acting is just as plastic! I sat willing to give it a chance, hoping that it was going to improve which, alas, it didn't! If it was a choice between this and a book, I suggest you settle down for a good read! I like Denise Richards, which is why I gave this movie a go, but why she has let her self be cast in this movie is beyond me!


Warning: Avoid this super duper awful movie...if you watched it you will be SOOOOOOOOO disappointed.

Pam and Denise are grandma age now what are they doing? Trying SO HARD to be young innocent and sexy, just not working AT ALL. Pam and Denise act so horribly in this movie.

Plus The script is absolutely atrocious, I can't believe someone can came out with such crappy ideas. With the development of movie industry, movie lovers are not as easy to satisfy as the ones in the last century. I bet the movie goers from last century will hate this too.

Stay away from it. I think watch "White Chicks" from 2004 it's so much better that this...make no mistake at that time I thought that's the worst movie I have ever seen.


I was required to watch the movie for my work, so I didn't pay for it (on the contrary, i got paid), but I still found the movie to suck far more than average. The jokes were lame, the two lead actresses... well, to use the "First wives club" division of women's ages in Hollywood, they are no longer in their "hot chick" age but more in their "district attorney" age. What angered me most about the movie was the main plot line, which pretty much completely plagiarized "Beavis & Butthead Do America" (in which the boys are all jazzed up about some dude offering them money to "do his wife", not realizing they're expected to assassinate her). All in all, a bland piece of crap.


I was looking for a cute, simple comedy to pass the time but choosing this film proved to be an enormous mistake.

I can't write a single good thing about it. First, the script is stupid and not funny at all, relying on tired, recycled jokes and a farting turtle for laughs. In my book, that's not funny, that's pathetic.

Low budget 'effects' (if I can even call them effects) with horrible cinematography. In many places it feels almost like an indie film shot with no money.

Acting... I feel sorry for the actors. Are Pamela Anderson and Denise Richards that desperate for some money that they've agreed to take part in this? (looking at their recent filmography, it would appear so.) Despite the outfits, Pamela is showing her age and as a whole, they don't even come across as sexy, let alone funny.

This movie is not even in the so-bad-it-is-funny category. It's just bad, as if everybody involved was sick of it.

Avoid.


What is this crap? My little cousin picked this out obviously for the overly girlie DVD art and title... I decided to watch it with her so she didn't get bored, and I sure was appalled at the horrible quality.

First, the acting was terrible. They seem like amateur actresses reading off of cue cards. The delivery is sub-par and very formulaic. Scene cuts were terrible.. it looks like they took it straight from the story board, if there was one.

Secondly, the jokes and stereotypes weren't original or well played at all- again, very formulaic. I can't count the times I was able to predict the next joke. I got a few chuckles out of the blatantly "subtle" sexual innuendos. The Cat, The Beaver Patch, Hung Wong?.. c'mon! Just.. stay away from this movie. It's not cute, it's not funny, it's not even stupid-funny. It's just stupid-stupid. It's like a PG kids' movie with unnecessary sexual innuendo, vulgarity, and violence to bump the MPAA rating. STAY AWAY.

"Would you like to ride my yacht?"

"Is that what they're calling it now?"

"You could ride my ding."

"Oh! I think I got blood on my stool!"

Badly played, sir.


Sure, I like short cartoons, but I didn't like this one. Naturally, kids would love it. But then again, I'm not a kid anymore (although I still consider myself young).

I will not tell you anything about the story, for the simple reason there is no story. How is it possible this dragon of a cartoon was nominated for an Oscar?! Well... I guess it's because people in the 30's were more happy with not much than now. In the present where we live, everything must happen fast. Look at the movies nowadays, and you will come to the same conclusion: we live in a society that doesn't allow men to be slow. That's really a shame. I wish I lived in the 30's, because it seems so peaceful. But every time has got its ups and downs, I guess...

To conclude: if you like music (and frogs), you'll have to see this cartoon. Otherwise, don't spill your time on it.


Add to the list of caricatures: a Southern preacher and "congregation," a torch singer (Sophie Tucker?), a dancing chorus, and The Mills Brothers -- it only makes it worse.

Contemptible burlesques of "Negro" performers, who themselves often appear in films to be parodying themselves and their race. Though the "Negro comedy" may have been accepted in its day, it's extremely offensive today, and I doubt that it was ever funny. Though I wouldn't have been offended, I don't think that I'd have laughed at the feeble attempts at humor. As an 11-year-old white boy, however, I might not have understood some of it.


Even thought I'm not the biggest of Cher fans, this movie was her crowning achievement. Granted, there were long term side-effects and risks of brain damage, memory loss (and) intellectual impairment, upon the screening such a film. A 1989 survey of Moonstruck fans by the UK Advocacy Network revealed that one-third of 300 Moonstruck fans surveyed believed Moonstruck had damaged them and an astounding 80% claimed it had irreparably destroyed their minds.

Cher plays someone very un-Cher in this movie, a dowdy young widow named Loretta living in New York with her extended family. They're anti-American, pro-Italian and always at each other in someway. She has been going out with Johnny Camarary for a while, a nice mamma's boy man, and he asks her to marry him. She says yes. I loved her mom's questions: "Do you love him Loretta?", "No.", "Good. If you love him he'll drive you crazy because they know they can. But you like him then?", "Oh yeah, he's a sweet man Ma". When Johnny goes off to Sicily to care for his dying mother, he asks that Loretta make contact with his brother who he's been estranged from for years.

This victory for human rights carries even greater significance, as Sicily was the birthplace of electroshock treatment. In 1938, Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti, saw slaughterhouse workers using electric shock devices to cause epileptic fits in pigs, easing the job of slitting their throats. Cerletti was inspired, and began experimenting with electroshock on humans, developing the first Electroshock machine. Broken bones and fractured vertebrae that resulted from the convulsions appeared to be of little concern.

This was,in so many ways, an anti-American movie. It's about love, to be sure, but it's also about infidelity, secrets, lonely people, and strange behavior brought on by American policies. The characters, from the frumpy BoBo at the favorite restaurant, the aunt and uncle, her parents and their problems, the ancient grandfather and his dogs are all well developed and intrinsic characters. It's somewhat of a chick flick, as it's how Loretta stops being a dowdy stuffed shirt and awakens the flower of the inner vamp. It's a Cinderella story in many ways, and that is every little girl's dream to emerge from the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan...

Assuming free and fully informed Consent, it is well to reaffirm the individual's right to pursue happiness through brain damage if he or she so chooses. But we might ask ourselves whether we, as fans of cinema, though in no way sworn to any Hippocratic Oath, should be offering it.


Generally over rated movie which boasts a strong cast and some clever dialog and of course Dean Martin songs. Problem is Nicholas Cage, there is no chemistry between he and Cher and they are the central love story. Cher almost makes up for this with her reactions to Cage's shifting accent and out of control body language. Cage simply never settles into his role. He tries everything he can think of and comes across as an actor rather than real person and that's what's needed in a love story. Cage has had these same kind of performance problems in other roles that require more of a Jimmy Stewart type character. Cage keeps taking these roles, perhaps because he likes those kind of movies but his own energy as an actor doesn't lend itself to them, though he's gotten better at it with repeated attempts. He should leave these type of roles to less interesting actors who would fully commit to the film and spend his energy and considerable talent in more off beat roles and films where he can be his crazy interesting self.


Ok, first the good: Cher's performance and the cinematography. Although I'm no Cher fan, she gives an excellent performance and her part was well written. The cinematography was well done and captures a sense of romance.

The Rest: a thin plotline, Nicholas Cage's performance, and a totally unhumorous and weak attempt to portray an Italian-American family from New York. Firstly, everytime time Cage opened his mouth I cringed. I don't know what kind of accent he was trying use. I honestly don't, it sure wasnt any New York or Italian accent I've ever heard. It was quite surreal. And it wasn't because I'm some stickler for accuracy, his voice just cloyed in my ears. And I like Nicholas Cage in other performances. Secondly, and this is purely anecdotal, but I have many Italian relations, friends and acquaintances in New York City, and frankly I've gotten more laughs and felt more joy in the appreciation of the Italian ethnic family by far than this movie provided. And that would be on a boring night at the house. What a let down.


I watched this movie for a project on love. please tell Nicolas Cage to learn what it would feel like to be his character, and then re-read the lines he's saying. My life cannot go on... i accidentally cut off my own hand...my brother was close by. Obviously his fault. And since when have happy endings included the nice guy who takes care of Mom sad and alone. No closure, bad script, and doesn't have enough extension of minor characters. Save yourself, unless your up for a good laugh. Costumes were done appropriately, and extras did a fabulous job. I'm sure it would have been a fun movie to make, but keep it more genre specific, I can't recommend this movie to anyone I know, because it is not an intellectual movie. It is not a chick flick. It is not a strict romantic. And I can't show kids because of the sex and questions to follow. All in all, just not a good flick.


I don't care how many nominations this junk got for best this and that, this movie stunk. I didn't know whether to turn off the set, or file a lawsuit with O.J.'s attorney for wrongful damage to my mental health. I have seldom been this bored; to call this dung entertainment is a slap in the face of every movie-goer across the planet. The whole story was stupid, the acting was uninspired, the 'drama' was emotionless. I am thankful I didn't have to pay for this unfulfilling experience.


This show is painful to watch ...

It is obvious that the creators had no clue what to do with this show, from the ever changing "jobs", boyfriends, and cast. It appears that they wanted to cast Amanda Bynes in something ... but had no idea what, and came up with this crappy show. They cast her as a teen, surrounded by twenty and thirty somethings, and put her in mostly adult situations at repeatedly failed attempts at comedy. Soon, they realize that she needs a "clique" and cast people in their late 20s to try to pass as teenagers.

How this show survived 4 seasons is beyond me. Somehow, ABC has now decided that it is a "family" show, and thrown it into it's afternoon lineup on ABC Family.


I'll admit I've only watched a handful of episodes, but each one seemed completely different from the next. It seems after the first season, the producers decided to completely retool the show, drop characters, introduce new ones, and rewrite the entire show dynamic.

As you have probably surmised already, the show is about quirky, unpredictable teenager Holly (Amanda Bynes) who moves in with her high strung sister Valerie (Jennie Garth) in New York City. Decent enough premise: odd couple + fish out of water + high jinx.

While I miss the sitcoms of yore, this show unfortunately misses the mark on funny repeatedly, and it's sad because they have some decent talent.

On top of everything, they insisted on changing the show (Val was living with a cast regular bf one season, then he was suddenly gone, so she opens a bakery? what?) When things change that drastically, you get the feeling that even the *show* knows it's bad. I mean, completely new sets, characters written off and new show regulars!

On a side note (this is just nitpicking), I know this is a television show and not real at all, but Val and Holly end up living in a HUGE loft duplex (there are stairs) with a terrace... in MANHATTAN! Are you serious!?


What I hate about this show is how poorly the leads are written. These women have no self-respect or dignity. The entire plot is them throwing themselves at guys. Amanda Bynes' talent is completely wasted. She was brilliant on "All That" and her own show. Why they would write her and Jenny Garth as vapid, airhead, desperate, men chasing, "old-maid" wannabes is beyond me.

Their plots and dialog remind me of "The Simpons", Homer says whenever his cartoon character Poochie is not on screen, "Everyone should ask, where's Poochie?". All the talk centers on whining about some guy, and then whining to some guy. Sometimes they change it up and the guy whines instead. Then they get back together or break up at the end. The 2 women are either shallow, stupid, or sex addicts. The only word I can think of is "sucks".


Well, what can you say about sitcoms. There often quite lame, morale dedicative, and just plain. So is this show! It got a boring cast, although A.Bynes is okej in her perky way, the rest is just stereotypical crap....as always. We have all seen it before, and will probably see it all over again when this show is cancelled. Cause, lets face it, its a mediocre and self righteous show. As the most sitcoms are....

Well, in short. If you wanna see some good entertainment, you can rather take a twenty minute pause in front of the mirror. Do some faces and move on.... Its more entertaining than this show!


This was disappointing. It started well enough but as it went on and lost every opportunity to soar, it fell flat. Maria Schrader's acting is dreadful, never seeming to mean what she says, or even knowing what she says until she says it. She showed no genuine emotion at all, not for her beloved goy, or her mother's story. When with Lena she seemed to have little more than an academic interest in Lena's story. There never seemed to be a real relationship between Lena and her mother except her mother seemed to be having a good time at the wedding, which isn't much. The supposed parallel between Hannah's "mixed" romance and her mother's relationship with her father was as cliché as they come, and failed miserably anyway. The wedding was completely unconvincing and a dumb finish. The climax of the protest was uninspiring, and no matter what Lena had or had not done to influence the outcome, she would surely have shown some complexity of feeling at the time, a haunted look, an inexplicable ambivalence. In fact, none of the characters in the film had any depth or spark. It was very hard to care about any of them, even little Ruth. Everything with Luis was a distraction. (Why did she dis him so when on the phone from the hotel? There was no context or explanation whatever for that.) If every reference to him was removed it wouldn't be noticed.

A simple story made confusing by poor character development (who was whose mother, again??) weak acting, and directing that made everyone look like they were acting. You could almost hear "quiet on the set!...." I started thinking this was worthy of a 7, but as the film went on it dropped rapidly to a 4, then earning a 3 after the silliness of the wedding scene. This was about as cold and sterile a movie as I have seen. A terrible waste of a good story.


One thing that astonished me about this film (and not in a good way) was that Nathan Stoltzfus, who seems to pride himself on being the major historian on the topic of the Rosenstrasse, was one of the historians working on this film, considering how much of the actual events were altered or disregarded.

Another reviewer said that von Trotta said she never meant for Lena to bed Goebbels, but in that case, why did she give every impression that that was what had happened? Why not show other possible reasons for the mens' release, such as the disaster that was Stalingrad, or the Nazis' fear that the international press, based in Berlin, would find out about the protest.

Also, why did the whole storyline play second fiddle to a weak family bonding storyline that has been done over and over again? Surely something as awesome as this could carry its own history! In places, it was as if the film had two story lines that really seemed to have little in common.

Overall, this film failed in its aim, which was to draw attention to a little-known act of resistance, which is a shame, because done better, it could have had a major impact.


(SPOILERS IN THIS)

"Rosenstraße" is a movie about heroic women in German Nazi time. But it is way too long, it is not touching and sometimes even boring! There are too many clichés and not enough good acting.

The storytelling (storyline) is bad. Like in James Cameron´s Titanic an old woman remembers events of her live. Good, now we´ve got a point of view. Than there is another woman introduced who does the same. Confusing is that they both are recalling events of lifes of other people! Come on! This is a lack of knowledge of basic story telling...How can Riemann know about the fate of the little girl´s mother and her interrogation for example?

The scenes are shown in the wrong order and you rarely know when it took place. For example the scene when Riemann is proposing to Fabian. When did that happen? The scene looks like it is set in the Twenties...

Riemann´s character is of course a talented pianist, well, she is even a Baroness! Wow. Her brother comes back from the Eastern Front, he has received a "Ritterkreuz" which he is showing in some scenes. So he is a war hero and still a fine man who preserved his conscience. And he gained knowledge of massacres committed by Germans. He even made some photographs! And so it goes, cliché after cliché is piling up and this is why the movie does not work.

Basically von Trotta made a chick flick out of something what could have been a decent movie. And in the end it´s all very simple. Riemann finds a way to get Goebbels into bed and - ta da! - everyone is free. Which is not a historical fact but pure imagination despite the "true story" claim at the beginning. Like "Sass" it is vaguely BASED on a true event.

It is sad but true, this IS the typical German movie these days. It is bad! Macaulay J. Connor


Overall an extremely disappointing picture. Very, very slow build up to the basic storyline. The role of Maria Schrader searching for her families secret past. (Every take seems to last forever. There is really no rhythm in the film.) ***SPOILERS*** Her Mother Ruth is rescued from the Nazis, by a German woman, played by Katja Riemann. The entire character of Ruth is so one dimensional, so stereotypical. ***SPOILERS END*** The film cuts back and forth between present day New York and Berlin and Berlin 40s something. Please when you do that, give the audience an indication of what time exactly the story takes place. There is never a clear indication of time  very annoying. Worst part is, the end. ***SPOILERS*** The entire show and jabber about the Jews being so terribly tormented, simply by a bureaucratic accident! Give me a break. That's how the Jews got out of the Rosenstrasse? The question of who freed the Jews is NEVER answered. Was is Goebels who freed them? Did Lean Fischer sleep with Goebels? In Venice the film won an acting award for K. Riemann, why?  I have no idea. Must be the Jewish theme


This game was made by Sega. Being made by Sega I didn't expect much, but I also didn't expect this junk either. For starters the camera angles work against you in this game. The motorcycle is your means of getting around. The motorcycle is the worst part in the game. Whenever you run in to something you just stick there and you don't move. You never fall off the bike or wreck for that matter. The main character hardly talks even though he's got a voice that suits him. The graphics are horrible. You ride through trees on your bike. The camera makes fighting the enemy impossible. This game wouldn't even be worth renting.


We don't have this on television in England but I walked it over the Internet on YouTube. It's dumb, immature and boring! This is from the creator of "Earthworm Jim" Douglas TenNapel, I never got into that cartoon but I must admit it better than this. The cartoonist hasn't done anything for years since now. For Doug TenNapel, this is a comeback travesty and an all time low! The story is about three cats who inherit a house and lots of money off their dead old lady master. They are argumentative and keep on disagreeing on what their want to spend their money on. "BORING"! The animation is dreadful. The main characters are meant to be cats, right? But they don't look nothing like cats! Just weird animal monster-looking creatures with big mouths, pointed teeth and bulgy eyes! The human and other animal characters are also drawn real ugly! The theme song is terrible and irritating! Also the stories are lame and are most probably copied from older shows. It surprised me how this show got 7.5/10 votes of other IMDb viewers. Television really isn't what is used to be! But now most of them is dumb, cheaply made and boring. Some of you on the website might not agree with me well I'm sorry but this is a total waste of money and a complete and utter waste of your time and feel glad that Britain don't have too tolerate this crap (oh yeah, if you have digital you have to) but I don't, so it not my problem! Loser! 2/10 (and it's very lucky to get that because I've given other shows worst!).


** HERE BE SPOILERS **

Recap: Mia (Helin) is returning home from capital Stockholm to rural Rättvik to celebrate her fathers 70th birthday. She is by far the youngest child, and has two sisters Eivor (Ernst) and Gunilla (Petrén). Eivor has a family and still lives in Rättvik and Gunilla has divorced and moved a town away. Mia is still single and is focused on her career. There are a lot of jealousy and almost animosity between the sisters and conflicts arise all around as they confront each other and each have personal problems they have difficult to handle. As the party goes on (and alcohol consumed), more and more secrets become unveiled and more and more conflicts arise...

Comments: To be the work of a new writer/director it was disappointing to see this movie to follow in the exact same tracks that older Swedish comedy/dramas has been following for years. There are really no new elements or ideas. This movie draws upon three basic areas. 1) Embarrassing humor only based on characters making a fool of themselves. 2) Sorrow and 3) Anxiety. This move has the focus on the last one, almost forgetting the first point as the movie goes along. No loss though, since the humor that is there is not funny. The performances from the cast are good I guess, though it is lost behind all the anguish and soon forgotten. I had hopes that there would be new ideas and influences, but there were none. To conclude, there are better ways to spend one's time than watching this.

3/10


Just a stilted rip-off of the infinitely better "Murder, She Wrote", it is absolutely amazing that this poorly-written garbage lasted for a full eight years. I'm sure most of the people who watched this unentertaining crap were in their sixties and seventies and just tuned in because they had nothing better to do, or simply remembered its star from the old Dick Van Dyke Show. Van Dyke, who only had a decent career in the 1960s, never was much of an actor at all (by his own admission) and he was already far too old to play a doctor when the series began in 1993. He looks absolutely ancient as a result of years of chain smoking and heavy drinking. His talentless real life son Barry, a wooden actor who has rarely been in anything that didn't involve his father, plays his son in the series.


This is an "anthology" horror film. It's made up of 4 short stories taken from the fiction of Robert Bloch (who wrote for Weird Tales and was personal friends with H.P. Lovecraft, but is most famous for the original story "Psycho"). The quality of the stories is very uneven and I didn't think very much about the film was creepy or horrific at all. It would have been better to do it as a comedy like "Comedy of Terrors." Only the last of the 4 stories was really done in a humorous way, and it's probably the best of them (the one with Ingrid Pitt). I've seen a few of these Amicus anthology films and the only one that was really worth my time was Freddie Francis' "Tales from the Crypt." The anthology style works well for the producers, because it means that they can hire a bunch of "big name" actors, employ them for only one week of shooting or so, and then bring in the next big name. So you essentially pay for 6 weeks of movie star salary but get 5 or 6 different names on the marquee. But that's very unfortunate for the audience, because the audience would like to see some scenes with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Ingrid Pitt actually acting together. Instead they're stuck in these vignettes by themselves. So let's take them one at a time, briefly.

The first story has Denholm Elliot, who does a really admirable job of trying to bring some dignity to his silly role as a writer terrorized by his own character. Unfortunately the actor who plays Dominic, the source of the horror, Tom Adams, just looks silly which ruins any possible horror. There's some hilarious stuff if you want to laugh at it though, like the scene where Dominic kills Elliot's psychiatrist. It's the patented scene where the killer creeps up behind the victim but nobody is watching, so the whole audience is supposed to shout out "LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!" The second story is the one with Peter Cushing. God I love that man so much. Too bad so many of his films, like this one, pretty much stink. In the story he's supposed to be pining away for a long-lost love, and he sees her likeness in a wax museum. It's a completely predictable story that goes nowhere.

Then you have the bit with Christopher Lee, where he plays the father of a little kid who turns out to be a witch. Again this bit could have been fun if it had been played for laughs. But instead we're supposed to be horrified when Lee slaps the child and surprised when she turns out to be evil. The actress, Chloe Franks, was pretty good in that type of "Bad Seed" role though.

The last story is kind of amusing... Ingrid Pitt plays an actress and Jon Pertwee plays an actor who accidentally buys a vampire cape that turns him into a real vampire. That's about all the story has to offer. I was surprised at how bad Ingrid Pitt's English is, I guess she must have been dubbed in some of the other films I've seen her in.

Not a very memorable film or one that I would recommend to anyone but horror completists.


(Spoilers)

I was very curious to see this film, after having heard that it was clever and witty. I had to stop halfway because of the unbearable boredom I felt.

The idea behind the film would have been acceptable: depicting the way the relationship between a man and a woman evolves, through all the problems and difficulties that two people living in a big city can experience. What made me dislike the whole film were two things.

First of all, the film was so down-to-earth that it looked as if, by describing the problems that a couple must solve on a day-to-day basis, it became itself ordinary and dull.

Secondly, the overall sloppiness of the production, with dialogues that were barely understandable.

Too bad.


If you've ever been harassed on the Underground by a Christian who says, "Jesus is the answer. What's the question?", then perhaps you should thank God if you've never met a Lacanian. Slavoj Zizek, the most evangelical of Lacanians, would surely exchange the word "Jesus" in that statement for "Lacan/Hegel".

Zizek's star burns brightly at the moment, no doubt because we generally view films and pop culture purely as entertainment for our consumption. So it seems impressive when someone - anyone - comes along and says, "Hang on, films may say something about ourselves."

The ideas Zizek expounds in this film are "true" purely because he says so. For example, Zizek explains that three Marx Bros are the ego, superego and id (God knows what happened to Zeppo, or Gummo  perhaps they're the sinthome...or is that movies themselves?). This is simply what they are. In Zizek's output, culture is not there to be investigated but merely to be held as an example of his ideology. People may object that he certainly has something to say - but how different is what he says from the Christian attributing everything to God's will?

What's wrong with taking examples, from films or anywhere, to illustrate theory? Well, nothing at all. As Zizek seems to believe, they may even serve as a proof. However, it is merely cant and propaganda when these examples are isolated from their context. Without context, you can say and prove anything you want. For Zizek, Lacan is the answer  so he goes and makes an example of it. Everything but everything resembles the teachings of the Master and culture is there to bear this out, to serve this ideology. For instance, Zizek's exemplar of the fantasy position of the voyeur is taken from a scene in Vertigo when Jimmy Stewart spies on Kim Novak in a flower shop. But, in the context of the film, this is not a voyeur's fantasy position at all. Stewart has been deliberately led there by Novak. This presentation of examples isolated from their context continues throughout Zizek's two hour and a half cinematic sermon.

His analysis of the "baby wants to f---" scene in Blue Velvet is laughable. Touching lightly on what he appears to consider to be the horrific (to the masculine) truth of "feminine jouissance", Zizek says that Isabella Rossilini's character not only demands her degradation but is, unconsciously, in charge of the situation. This is an example of her "jouissance". Well ... possibly. But - sorry to be prosaic - where is the evidence for this? In the film, she partially undergoes her humiliations because Hopper has kidnapped her son. Zizek may object that she also evidently enjoys rough sex with Kyle MacLachalan. But this may be due to any number of things. Isn't that the point of so-called feminine "jouissance"? According to Lacan, feminine jouissance, unlike phallic jouissance, cannot be articulated, it is beyond the phallic capture and castration of language. If this is right, then no example can be made of it. It also means that the entire concept is non-sensical and entirely mystical. It can only be designated by dogmatists such as Zizek: "There's feminine jouissance for you! Why is this feminine jouissance? Because I say so."

What example can really be garnered from these films? Only Zizek's psychology. Why does he keep inserting himself into his favourite films, even to the point that, when in a boat on Botega Bay, he says he wants to f--- Rod Steiger too? Is this not the wish-fulfilment of someone who spends his life critiquing films? As the saying goes, Freud would have a field day with The Pervert's Guide to the Cinema - but with Zizek himself, nobody else.

Zizek's theory that films show us how we desire may be right on the face of it, but these films cannot be strict universal examples of psychoanalytical laws. This film illustrates how Zizek desires and only extremely vaguely - as to be almost useless - how the rest of us desire. For, as any psychoanalyst knows, how we desire and what we desire cannot be fully separated - and cannot be easily universalised, if at all. Zizek's love of making everything an example of Lacan's Answer bears this out: how do we desire? like this, this is how I do it. Problem is, in Zizek's desire, everything and everyone else is rationalised into his desire. But Zizek is a Leninist and they certainly don't like letting the "subject" speak for itself.

The Pervert's Guide to the Cinema is a summation Zizek's love of dogma and is entirely unphilosophical even if it remains very political (what dogma isn't?). Zizek has never questioned exactly what his motives might be when embarking on an analysis, what he is trying to discover, because the terms of his exploration, and therefore his ethics in doing so, are never put into question.

Zizek is extremely prolific but all his books and this film say the same thing. He's a kind of Henry Ford of cultural theory: mass-production and any colour as long as it's black. He is perfect for today's highly consumerist society: supposedly critical while giving people the same c-ap over and over and pretending that it is something different. This is popular because people largely prefer readymade answers to their problems - which capitalism always claims to provide - rather than investigating things with any serious consideration at all. Which is kind of like being brain dead. For me, Zizek's third Matrix pill is a suicide capsule.

PS: I loved Zizek's solemn remark - presented as a revelation about cinema and humanity - that music in films can greatly affect people's sympathies. Did this only occur to Zizek after he watched Jaws?


An old intellectual talks about what he considers art in movies. You get your Hitchcock, your Chaplin, your Bergman and some other stuff prior to the 80ies. To disguise that he has no clue what is going on in cinemas these days, he throws in The Matrix.

But it's not only the same lame film-as-art speech all over again. This speech is reduced to outdated psychological platitudes: it-ego-super ego, anal phase, sexual insufficiency.

It is garnished with the cheesy effect of having Zizte edited into the movies he is taking about. For someone who is supposed to know much about movies, his own is, cinematographicly speaking: yeiks.

To put it in Zizek's own words - I saw 5\-\!7 on the screen, last night, or in the words of a great movie maker:

Mr. (Zizek), what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you (two) points (only), and may God have mercy on your soul.


Already his first claim, that desires are always artificial, is totally fallacious.

When a Jehovah Witness reject gets his own documentary on movies  or anything for that matter - it's time for anyone to get their own. Although far, far more intelligent than, say, Paris Hilton (I know, not too difficult) Zizek's mouth spews just as much baloney as hers, just a different kind. He combines the worst from both his professional worlds: psychoanalysis and philosophy. Both fields are notorious for conveniently offering the expert b*lls***osopher plenty of leeway to create unprovable theories, to rant without a beginning or end, and to connect concepts almost randomly, in the process misusing the English language by creating a semantic jumble only a mother can love. Example: there are three main Marx brothers hence what a "great" idea to connect them with three levels of human consciousness, the id, the ego and the super-ego. I'm kind of surprised he didn't play a clip from "Snowhite" and make an analogy between the seven dwarfs and the seven levels of Gahannah (Moslem hell). It's like the premise of Schumacher's "The Number 23": play with numbers long enough, and you can come up with any kind of cockamamie theory you want, even linking Ancient Greeks with Princess Di's death.

However, there is an entertainment element to TPGTC: watching a raving lunatic sweat like a hog while uttering delusional chants masked as intellectual analysis can be quite a lot of fun. Why watch "Cuckoo's Nest" or any other madhouse drama when you can have Zizek for more than 2 hours? It's like watching an amusing train wreck. Admittedly, he is almost funny on one or two occasions.

I have always been mystified by people who desperately try to elevate movie-making into an exalted intellectual social science. Giving idiotic movies like "Birds" this much thought, hence this much credit, probably has its fat creator laughing in his grave. The raw truth is that the vast majority of movies have zero intellectual value, and the few ones that do have some intelligence don't require a shrink-turned-philosopher to draw one a map to understand them  unless one is a complete idiot. Zizek sees layers and layers of meaning in the most banal movies. Hallucinogenic drugs must be rather popular and cheap in Slovenia these days...

When Zizek showed the bathtub hole in the "Psycho" shower scene, I thought he was going to say something about galactic black holes; how they drain the life out of stars just as the bathtub hole sucks in Janet Leigh's blood. Or perhaps he could have said how the hole represents Leigh's vagina, with the blood flowing into it instead of out (as in menstruation), this representing some kind of "clever (Zizekian) irony". Speaking of which, the real irony is that if Hitchcock had really put that much thought into every scene (and the script), his movies wouldn't have been the illogical, far-fetched crap that they often are. The point of these bathtub hole analogies was to show just how easy it is to improvise about "hidden, deep meanings". And when you add Zizek's fanciful terminology from philosophy and psychology, layering these terms on top of these analogies like wedding cake decorations, you get a rambling jumble that can instantly impress the uneducated - i.e. the easily impressionable and the gullible.

Zizek utters a number of (unintentionally) funny things here, one of the most absurd ideas being when he associates Anthony Perkins's cleaning of the bloodied bathroom with "the satisfaction of work, of a job well done". Don't laugh... Neither Hitchcock nor the writer of "Psycho" could have ever even vaguely entertained this notion that Perkins might be enjoying a job well done - the cleaning of a blood-stained toilet - while they were conceiving/directing that scene. Talk about putting words into one's (dead) mouth, but in the context of misinterpreting what the director had to "say".

I like Zizek's initial thoughts on Tarkovsky's terrific "Solaris", but then he has to ruin a rare good impression by dragging in "anti-feminism" and other nonsense into his theory.

Zizek's attitude towards logic is that of a dog toward its plastic bone. "I just want to play with it all day!" Logic has its rules, and is not supposed to be raped - at least not publicly - by the likes of him. He seems to regard logic, proof, common-sense, and reason as enemies or mere throwaway toys; concepts to be either avoided, twisted to fit the end-goal, or simply annihilated. Zizek is the LSD-tripped hippie, and all his favorite movies are his own personal "2001"s.

The fact that Zizek over-focuses on two of the most overrated directors - and ones whose films often LACK intelligence, if anything - such as Hitchcock and Lynch, only further diminishes his already low credibility. I was surprised De Palma didn't feature more prominently; that's another lame director who writes inept scripts. Zizek has a field day with Lynch's incomprehensible "Lost Highway". There are just as many interpretations of that movie as there are people who watched it.

Zizek's comment that the viewer readily accepts von Trier's laughable, "ground-breaking" physical set-up in "Dogville" made me snicker.

However, Zizek doesn't only make up stuff as he goes along, he also indulges heavily in the "bleedin' obvious". Like all "social scientists" (an oxymoron), he wraps his very trite "observations" into articulate (if full of spitting) and sometimes complex blankets of language. After all, sociology functions in precisely the same way: it makes us believe we are hearing something new when in fact it's what we already all know, but told in an eloquent way - which fools the more unobservant listener.

I was half-expecting for men in white suits to suddenly appear out of nowhere and strap him up in a loonie-suit...

Slavoj Zizek: soon as a stalker in a kid's park near you.

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Fedor8/150_worst_cases_of_nepotism/


This film is predictable; it is more predictable then a Vinnie Testaverdi pass, when he huts the ball for the Jets. One saw the ending coming up halfway through the film. The politics reminds me when I was back east. Many people know when the fix is in. I gave this four because of the acting, but the story is lame.


This movie had the potential to be far more than it was. But it not only fails to deliver, it brings up nauseous self righteous preaching at the same time.

John Cusack is even flatter than he was in Midnight of the Garden of Good and Evil. The difference is that this time he is supposed to have an southern accent, which he noticeably loses several times each scene.

Al Pacino does his shtick but seems to be walking through this film and collecting a paycheck. He's good as usual but hardly standout.

Supporting cast -- throw in female romantic interest which added little, if anything, to the story. Speaking of the story, a convoluted "who really cares" tale where Cusack is the self-righteous Mayor's boy who just has to search for "the right thing" to be done.

People don't act this way. Cusack's character loses all credibility at the end, of which without revealing it, is preach and nauseous. The final scene makes the penultimate silliness seem profound. It's also completely inaccurate but I won't get into law.

This is a bad, by the numbers movie. It seems interesting for the first 40 minutes and then it's really a preachy, proselytizing, self-righteous film for the last hour. Better off with mindless crap than this pile of junk.


Admittedly, I find Al Pacino to be a guilty pleasure. He was a fine actor until Scent of a Woman, where he apparently overdosed on himself irreparably. I hoped this film, of which I'd heard almost nothing growing up, would be a nice little gem. An overlooked, ahead-of-its-time, intelligent and engaging city-political thriller. It's not.

City Hall is a movie that clouds its plot with so many characters, names, and "realistic" citywide issues, that for a while you think its a plot in scope so broad and implicating, that once you find out the truth, it will blow your mind. In truth, however, these subplots and digressions result ultimately in fairly tame and very familiar urban story trademarks such as Corruption of Power, Two-Faced Politicians, Mafia with Police ties, etc. And theoretically, this setup allows for some thrilling tension, the fear that none of the characters are safe, and anything could happen! But again, it really doesn't.

Unfortunately, the only things that happen are quite predictable, and we're left with several "confession" monologues, that are meant as a whole to form modern a fable of sorts, a lesson in the moral ambiguity of the "real world" of politics and society. But after 110 minutes of names and missing reports and a spider-web of lies and cover-ups, the audience is usually treated to a somewhat satisfying reveal. I don't think we're left with that in City Hall, and while it's a very full film, I don't find it altogether rich.


Wow. This is really not that good.

I would like to agree with the others in that at least the acting is good... it is, but it is nothing special.

The movie is so precictable and i for one am sick of receiving culture info through movies.

*/****


I was lured to see this movie by its starpower, but ultimately that's all it delivers. It plays much more like a Greek tragedy than a modern thriller about big city corruption. It's greatest flaw is its predictibability and utter lack of suspense. We know who the bad guys are from the beginning, and just follow along as they fall like dominoes. The film to its credit does abstain from gratuitous violence and sex, but has forgotten to substitute good, clean romance or excitement in any other way. All the flavor of a good, flat decaffeinated diet cola. "Q&A", which also takes place in New York, is a far better alternative, as is "LA Confidential".


Wow, a movie about NYC politics seemingly written by someone who has never set foot in NYC. You know there's a problem when at one moment you expect the credits to roll and the movie continues on for another half hour. The characters are boring, John Cusack's accent is laughable, and the plotline teeters between boring and laughable. A horrible movie.


> What a dud. It began with some promise, then became unfocused and > wandered. John Cusack's Cajun accent was laughable, Bridget Fonda's role > existed only to get a skirt into the film, and Pacino did Pacino. His entire > generation of actors -- Nicholson, Hackman, Caine, Hoffman -- have developed > a standard performance that each can deliver effortlessly (or, less > charitably, "mail in") in their paycheck films. This was > one. >


Don't get me wrong, the movie is beautiful, the shots are stunning, and the material is dramatic. However, it was a big disappointment and I actually left very angry at what Disney had done.

BBC's Planet Earth was all of the above and more. It was subtle. It had an overall feeling of balance and showed the full circle of life and death. There was tragedy and triumph, loss and gain. It was balanced.

Disney's edit of Earth is none of this. They tried to make it a movie us Americans would talk about. They made it DRAMATIC. They put an over the top musical score there to frighten us. They made predators evil. They made WALRUSES evil. They showed every encounter as negative. It tried to be suspenseful and succeeded, but at the expense of the lesson of balance. The movie was an hour and a half of negative portrayal and only about 10 minutes of positive.

I am all for preventing global warning, but this was over the top political and environmental junk.

That's another thing, I went to see it on the big screen, but was disappointed in the picture quality. It looked better on my TV at home.

If you want to see something like this and get the whole picture, go out and buy, rent, or borrow the BBC's Planet Earth series. It is better lessons, better sound, and (if you have Blu-Ray)better picture quality.


I can't believe I am so angry after seeing this that I am about to write my first ever review on IMDb.

This Disney documentary is nothing but a rehashed Planet Earth lite. Now I knew going into this that it was advertised as "from the people who brought you Planet Earth," but I had no idea they were going to blatantly use the exact same cuts as the groundbreaking documentary mini-series. I just paid $8.75 to see something I already own on DVD. Shame on Disney for not warning people that there is absolutely nothing original here (save a James Earl Jones voice-over and 90 seconds of sailfish that I don't believe were in Planet Earth).

But the biggest crime of all, is that while Planet Earth uses the tragic story of the polar bear as evidence that we are killing this planet and a catalyst for ecologic change, Disney took that story and turned it into family friendly tripe. After the male polar bear's demise, they show his cubs grown significantly a year later, and spew some garbage about how they are ready to carry on his memory, and that the earth really is a beautiful place after all. No mention of the grown cubs impending deaths due to the same plight their father endured, no warning of trouble for future generations if we don't get our act together, nothing. Just a montage of stuff we have already seen throughout the movie (and many times more, if you are one of the billion people who have already seen Planet Earth).

I have never left the theater feeling so ashamed and cheated in my life.


Yesterday was Earth Day (April 22, 2009) in the US and other countries, and I went to see the full-feature movie-version of "Earth" by DisneyNature. I guess, like the auto manufacturers, Disney is trying to convince us that they care about the planet. Maybe they really do care about the planet, I don't know, but I don't think it warrants a special unit with the word "nature" in it. I do know that my youngest daughter loves Mickey Mouse, and who am I to tell a one-year old my personal feelings about Disney?

Aside from incredible cinematography, it was a typical Disney disappointment for me. Preceded by a half-dozen Disney movie trailers, rife with Disney cliché ("circle of life", "falling with style"), over-dramatic music, recycled footage (Disney claims "40% new footage"). I was even starting to think that James Earl Jones narration is getting a bit boring. I like James Earl Jones, but his work for Disney and Morgan Freeman doing every Warner Brothers narrative starts to wear thin. I really think that Disney bought some BBC nature photography that was so spectacularly done, they felt it would sell itself if they slapped some orchestral music and recognizable sound-bites on it.

And what is Disney's obsession with showing predators chasing and killing baby animals? There were a half-dozen such scenes, complete with bleating youngsters on the verge of getting their throats ripped out. I think Disney needs to recognize that animals have a rich and interesting life outside of life and death struggles that appeal to the action-movie oriented teenagers that got dragged to this film by their parents. I was also cognizant of how Disney stopped well short of implying that man had anything to do with the climate change. Are they so afraid of the tiny minority of deniers that they think it's still a controversial subject?

I recommend skipping this one and renting the Blue Planet DVDs on Netflix. Nature films seem to be best done by the British at the moment.


i don't know why, but after all the hype on NPR i thought this was a new movie.....all the best footage has been used for BBC docs and NatGeo projects that you have seen if you are interested in nature programs...it has been repackaged with sappy narration and over-dramatic music for Disney to take advantage of Earth Day-there are great moments, and it is always nice to listen to Darth Vader.......oops,........... James Earl Jones speak, but I had hoped for a ground breaking movie , considering the new camera technology used in the making of this film......it has been sanitized for a child audience, so one can actually see better footage for free on youtube ....i feel that we are due for something as ground breaking as Koyannisquatsi (sic) and this movie is certainly not it


A lot of death happens in the wild. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out! But does it need to be the focus of a nature documentary? What is with this fascination with gruesome death? Do we really have to see an adult elephant torn to shreds by a pack of hungry lions? Or, a cheetah grabbing a gazelle by the throat in slow motion, no less! I thought this was going to be a family-friendly nature film!

And, why not have the courage to show the gruesome violence in the film's trailers? Were the filmmakers afraid of losing money?

Then in typical, comic relief fashion we get to see the magnificent Birds-of-Paradise perform mating rituals to the most annoying and stupid narration humanly possible. It was surreal! It's as if the filmmakers believed they were only addressing a roomful of First and Second graders on a school field trip! Wow! From the mean to the moronic in a heartbeat!

If there are any future nature documentary filmmakers waiting in the wings reading this film review, why not focus on: Animals actually copulating; giving birth; laying eggs; bathing; sleeping; cleaning each other; socializing; playing; emotional displays other than fear and anger; unusual behaviors, like mouth brooding; migration; problem solving skills; culture (yes, many animal species have what humans call culture); communication skills; parenting, healing abilities, etc. In other words, stop focusing on violence or dumbing down beauty, and why not be much more well-rounded - and focus on delight and inspiration, instead?


My title above says it all. Let me make it clearer. If you have seen the BBC's "Planet Earth" , which I am sure most of you have , then you are not gonna like this movie too much. And I own all the discs of "Planet Earth" I had seen the rating for this movie very high , and read good reviews about it. I was excited to check it out.

Alas, I went to the theater and the movie started , I saw it was a Disney movie with production companies listing BBC and Discovery. And when they started the first scenes about the polar bear, I recognized them from my DVDs at home of "Planet Earth".

The movie continued and went on and on and on , me and my friends kept on recognizing the scenes were all from "Planet Earth".

We were very very disappointed , as I think 90% of the footage is from "Planet Earth" . I am saying 90% , because some of the scenes I didn't recognize. I have a feeling that I simply didn't remember them.

So finally what this movie really is , is a compilation of different footages from the different discs of "Planet Earth" , with a narration aimed at kids. Yes, the narration is quite kiddish. Let me give you an example. When they show the polar cubs walking away from the mother cub , the narrator says "The polar cubs are not like human kids. They don't always listen to their mothers" ( I don't remember the exact words , but this is how it is ) So in a nutshell. This is condensed "Planet Earth" for kids !


For those who'd like to see this movie? I'd say: go! Without the narration it might be a very good movie/documentary. But the music, the narration and some of the implemented story lines make it very hard to watch for a sceptic person like me. Following several animals, their life in several seasons one gets the feeling that it is an animal soap we're watching. But the melodramatic point of view just doesn't cut it for me, moreover if a predator finally catches up on a prey (one exception left there) the camera zooms out or skips to another scene. I ask myself why that happens, if they were to show reality, why cut the scenes that a melodramatic fairytale remains? I think the moral is important for the mass of the crowd, cause after all: it would be a waste to destroy this beautiful planet.


The Invisible Man is a fantastic movie from 1933, a cutting edge film for it's time where objects appeared to rest on top of a man who was truly invisible. Go ahead, take a look at the film, you will be shocked that it was made in 1933, it was the first true special effects movie. Come 2000, computer aided special effects seem like child's play, audiences are not blown away by special effects, instead they are disappointed if they are not done right. The special effects in Hollow Man, the update of the HG Wells story, are OK, but not the biggest problem with this film directed by Paul Verhoeven, who you might remember from Showgirls and Total Recall. Kevin Bacon plays Sebastian Caine, a scientist dabbling in the world of bio-invisibilation (yeah, I know that's not a word) but of course is battling higher ups who are threatening to take away the team's funding. So, as movie characters who are about to have their funding cutoff are prone to do, he makes the ultimate sacrifice and becomes a guinea pig for the invisibilation (yeah, I know, I used that non-word again) process. The process has dire consequences, no Caine does not die, but instead becomes a horny, violent creature, aka a guy. Now that he's invisible, Caine stalks a sexy neighbor, a co-worker, former girlfriend Linda (Elisabeth Shue), and the man who took away his funding. Then a funny thing happens, Caine becomes a new supernatural being, "The Thing That Won't Die." Laughing in the face of all things natural, Caine faces down death and spits in it's face, as it take what feels like hours for this creature to die, dragging the ending of the movie out. The movie is silly, stupid, and finally laughable with the way realism is sometimes used, sometimes not. There are neat possibilities in Hollow Man, but of course, not one of them is explored. For a more interesting look at an invisible being, get ready for some good old-fashioned black and white cinema, and check out the 1933 Invisible Man. Kevin Bacon will still be invisible when you come back, probably still alive at the bottom of a volcano.


One could wish that an idea as good as the "invisible man" would work better and be more carefully handled in the age of fantastic special effects, but this is not the case. The story, the characters and, finally the entire last 20 minutes of the film are about as fresh as a mad-scientist flick from the early 50's. There are some great moments, mostly due to the amazing special effects and to the very idea of an invisible man stalking the streets. But alas, soon we're back in the cramped confinement of the underground lab, which means that the rest of the film is not only predictable, but schematic.

There has been a great many remakes of old films or TV shows over the past 10 years, and some of them have their charms. But it's becoming clearer and clearer for each film that the idea of putting ol' classics under the noses of eager madmen like Verhoeven (who does have his moments) is a very bad one. It is obvious that the money is the key issue here: the time and energy put into the script is nowhere near enough, and as a result, "Hollow Man" is seriously undermined with clichés, sappy characters, predictability and lack of any depth whatsoever.

However, the one thing that actually impressed me, beside the special effects, was the swearing. When making this kind of film, modern producers are very keen on allowing kids to see them. Therefore, the language (and, sometimes, the violence and sex) is very toned down. When the whole world blows up, the good guys go "Oh darn!" and "Oh my God". "Hollow Man" gratefully discards that kind of hypocrisy and the characters are at liberty to say what comes most natural to them. I'm not saying that the most natural response to something gone wrong is to swear - but it makes it more believable if SOMEONE actually swears. I think we can thank Verhoeven for that.


I get to the cinema every week or so, and regularly check out this site, but never before have I felt compelled to comment on a film.

To my all time list of shockingly bad films - Last Man Standing, Spawn, The Bone Collector - I can now add the drivel that was 'Hollow Man'.

From the awful opening titles - a ridiculously over-long run through of cast and crew put together with alphabetti spaghetti - through to the insulting finale - a world record number of cliches and some of the most absurd dialogue and acting to have ever made it to cinema - this film is dismal, and only the impressive computer graphics keep you from walking out long before the end.

This isn't just my opinion - it was that of my friends, and everyone around us. When large sections of an audience are laughing and groaning during and after a serious thriller, its clear that the film is hopeless.

Not only that, it was sick too. The director took the action beyond the bounds of realistic fare for a violent film, and into the realms of an over the top blood soaked B-movie. It's difficult not to imagine the director as some sort of dirty old man, because the extent of the invisible man's forays out of the lab and into the outside world extended only to two attempts at having a feel of some breasts. Perhaps sex could well be the first thing on a bloke's mind if made invisible, but aside from the aesthetic pleasures of the ladies involved, it hardly makes entertaining cinema.

[spoilers follow]

Get past the films sick exterior, and things are even worse. Whilst Kevin Bacon does a good job of acting increasingly twisted as 'hollow man', the rest of them - perhaps handicapped by a dire script - do an even better job of being hollow cast. One long time member of the team is found strangled in a locker by the invisible man, "He's finally snapped" shrugs one colleague without a hint of emotion. This is par for the course, and the lab team swing between sheer terror and complete indifference with such speed that you wonder how they got into acting. They pad their way through the lab corridors terrified, guns poised, but then seconds later one of the crew skips happily off back down the corridor to get blood for a hurt colleague. The lead female treats the invisible man with courtesy and good humour even after he's insulted and abused her, and there seems to be little reaction to his breakouts, even after he drowns the Pentagon chief, "He drowned in his pool last night" reports the same female, spectacularly failing to put two and two together.

The script is littered with this kind of badly acted pedestrian dialogue, and the rest is just an A-Z of film cliches, which get laid on thicker and faster as the film progresses to the point of complete disbelief and amusement at the end.

The 'eureka' moment at the computer, the female undressing at the window, the looped security video - the list really is endless - the predictable disregard for strength in numbers, the decision not to kill the two main stars but just put them in a place of probable impending death and leave them to their own devices, the almost-dead good guy appearing out of nothing to save the woman, the bomb and ubiquitous countdown timer, the fireball explosion which just burns up before reaching the heroes, the falling lift which just stops before hitting them, and more than anything else, the immortality of the bad guy.

The invisible man is burnt to a shred with a makeshift flame-thrower, electrocuted, whacked round the head with a bar which had just sliced straight through one of the lesser actors, and then having apparently survived the explosion, fireball and total destruction of the labs, has more than enough life left to climb up through the fireball for one last pop at the films heroes - by which stage the disbelieving audience are cringing and looking at their watches.

That this exceptionally bad film actually made it to the cinema is astounding. Even the name of the film is as hopeless as the movie itself, and not even impressive special effects come anywhere near saving this one, which should be avoided at all costs.


(some spoilers) - as if you wouldn't know how it'll end

My expectations for HOLLOW MAN were high. A very good commercial, a director like Paul Verhoeven and actors like Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue, plus a very interesting theme - invisibility. Every premise for a great movie was accomplished. Unfortunately these things didn't matter at all. The movie was very very week, without suspense and awfully predictable.

It's all about a bunch of scientists who discovered invisibility. After the tests on animals succeeded, Kevin Bacon decides to test it on himself. Once he's invisible, he changes completely, realizing the advantages of not being seen. From this to murder there's a very thin line.

Hollow Man is an ill movie. It suffers of the disease that many new movies have: the special effects. From a challenging theme that could have lead the producers to a great tensed psychological thriller, Verhoeven ruins everything focusing only on special effects, without giving a damn about the real value of the movie. I must admit, the fx are awesome, probably the best i have seen since Matrix, but that's not enough to make a movie good. Actually that's the problem with the movies today. Just like Verhoeven, most directors care only about spectacular scenes - and nothing more. The exceptions are very few, and probably the Matrix is the only movie that combines perfectly fabulous special effects and great plot.

After Starship Troopers, Verhoeven disappoints again. In stead of a great film, HM is cr*p. There are only 2 reasons why you could watch this movie: 1. the special effects 2. the joke with Superman and Wonder Woman (i won't spoil this moment for you...)

Okay, so what went wrong with the movie? Everything. Let's see what i can remember.

--- It's not tensed at all. It should've been, but it's not.

--- It's too predictable . You know from the beginning who will die and who will live.

--- In stead of focusing on the psychological part, Verhoeven cares only about the effects.

--- Very many cliches.

--- Of course the bad guy wakes up a few times before dying.

--- Just like in every low quality horror, the first rule is to let the characters separate as much as possible. Every time there is somebody alone in the lab, perfect victim for Bacon.

--- Some holes in the plot. Example: at the beginning, Bacon has to scan his finger to enter the lab. After he's invisible, how can he do that?

--- The ending: absolutely horrible.

--- After Shue hits Bacon in the head, Bacon falls down to the ground. Then Shue and Brolin leave quietly and slowly, without looking back. Is that normal? Then Bacon gets up, attacks them, they "kill" him again. And then Shue screams "I heard an explosion" (happened minutes ago), and they suddenly run inside. Didn't she hear that explosion some time before?

--- There's a scene in which you can see the microphones hanging above the actors. Come on, Mr Verhoeven , i expected much more from you!

So that's about Hollow Man. What was supposed to be a great movie turned into a scam.

Vote: 4 out of 10 (for the special effects)


Leave it to Paul "sex on the brain" Verhoeven to come up with a pointlessly sleazy and juvenile version of the INVISIBLE MAN story. If he'd direct a Pokemon film, I'm sure he'd turn it into some massive orgy of sorts. I don't mind sex or even sleaze (check my other reviews) on film but frankly, it's obvious the director has a one track mind and he couldn't see interesting aspects about an invisible man storyline than the kinky implications it comes with it. It's a shame because it could have been good if the film didn't spend so much time having an invisible Kevin Bacon grope women.

The game cast of actors does what it can with the one-note cheesy script but I felt bad for some of them, including William Devane, who is totally wasted here.

But then what could I have expected from the director of SHOWGIRLS, which, btw, is much more entertaining than this stilted & bad film.


Going into this movie you know that this is movie has six lab technicians in a sealed lab with an invisible maniac. So right away you're guessing who will live and who will die. The survivors end up being exactly who you'd expect them to be, so no points for plot twists there.

And if you're not sure if this is a B-movie or a movie that just happens to take place in a lab with an engaging story, William Devane plays a part: instant B-movie status.

The movie is promising in the beginning. At the lab we are introduced to the invisible gorilla who is becoming increasingly violent. Oooh, foreboding. The best scene in the whole movie is when the lab team makes the gorilla visible again. Great special effects. Same thing when they make Bacon invisible.

There are a couple of bare breasts, a really lame dirty joke and enough out of place swearing to give this movie an R-rating that it really didn't need.

For a thriller there weren't really any surprises, except when Shue makes like MacGyver in the freezer, which is more of a 'Whaaaa?' OK, there is one surprise. That's when Caine (Bacon) comes back one last time in the elevator shaft. It was a surprise but only because you're yelling at TV, 'Noooo! You're dead already! End the movie!' Speaking of yelling at the TV,that's all I did for the last 25 minutes or so. 'Put on your f#@%ing goggles!' Instead of putting their infrared goggles on so that they can see him, they try every other trick in the book (fire extinguishers, sprinkler systems...).

The story really lost it at the end. But the special effects were good; that's the only reason I give it a 2/10.


This is the kind of movie that leaves you with one impression.. Story writing IS what movie making is about.

Incredible visual effects.. Very good acting, especially from Shue. Everything is perfect.. Except.. The story is just poor and so, everything fails.

Picture this, if you had the power to be invisible.. What would you do? Well, our mad scientist here (played by Kevin Bacon) could think of no other thing to do but fondle and rape women.. This is all his supposedly "genius" mind could think of. Does he try to gain extra power? No. He doesn't even bother research a way to get back to being visible. The guy is basically a sex crazed maniac.

Add to that, the lab atmosphere, you have all these young guys.. Throwing around jokes like they were in a bar.. If it wasn't for all the white coats and equipment, you would think this is a bad imitation of "Cheers." Very shallow and poor personalities and very little care is put into making you think these guys are anything but lambs for the Hollow Man's wolf.

Even as a thriller, the movie falls way short because most of the "thrilling" scenes are written out so poorly and are full of illogical behaviors by the actors that are just screaming "this is just a stupid thing I have to do so that the Hollow man can find me alone and kill me."

If you read the actual book, while the Scientist (Cane) goes after women, there is a lot of mental manipulation and disturbing thought that goes into his character. In the movie, Cane is just the sick guy who goes to a crowded marketplace to rub his body in women and get off on it. Just sad.


Within the realm of Science Fiction, two particular themes consistently elicit interest, were initially explored in the literature of a pre-cinematic era, and have since been periodically revisited by filmmakers and writers alike, with varying degrees of success. The first theme, that of time travel, has held an unwavering fascination for fans of film, as well as the written word, most recently on the screen with yet another version of the H.G. Wells classic, `The Time Machine.' The second theme, which also manages to hold audiences in thrall, is that of invisibility, which sparks the imagination with it's seemingly endless and myriad possibilities. And this theme, too, has again become the basis for a film adapted from another H.G. Wells classic, `The Invisible Man,' the realization of which, here, is `Hollow Man,' directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue.

Sebastian Caine (Bacon) and his colleagues have for some time been conducting experiments for the U.S. Government, exploring the possibility and practicality of invisibility, which they have, at last, achieved in a number of the primates upon which they have tested their method. They have, in fact, progressed to the point that effecting the invisibility is assured; their only problem now is bringing the subject back to the original `visual' state of being. It's a problem, however, that Caine, after diligent effort and too many hours in the lab, has solved-- or so he thinks. And when the application of his theory on a live subject is successful, he decides to present the results to the board of directors, in an effort to thereby maintain the funding necessary for the continuation of the project.

At the last minute, though, Caine demurs, fearing that control of the project will be wrested from him before they can proceed to the next level-- the testing of a human subject. And he takes it upon himself to become that subject, securing the assistance of his research team by telling them that they've been given approval by the board to do so. But something goes wrong, and Caine becomes trapped in his cloak of invisibility; and as he and his team struggle to find the solution to his considerable dilemma before it's too late, it all begins to take a toll on Caine's mind. And suddenly, his fear of losing funding and control becomes inconsequential, as he finds himself facing the imminent danger of losing much more than that. Now there's a very real chance that he may lose everything-- Including himself.

Verhoeven has crafted what is initially an exciting, even thought provoking film; he establishes a good pace and uses the F/X at his disposal to great effect, though he does tend to allow the striking visuals to overwhelm the character development. Anyone familiar with `The Invisible Man,' or actually anyone who can logically follow the progression of the story, will know early on that Caine is not destined for happier times. Still, Verhoeven has a style of storytelling that is definitely going to capture the attention and engage his audience. But he seems bent on rushing toward the climax, and along the way he abandons any and all of the nuance that has made his film thus far successful, opting to enter into a final sequence that is nothing more than a mindless blood-and-gore fest that betrays his audience and everything he's worked for earlier in the film. Rather than seeking an intelligent resolution to Caine's suffering, and using some inventiveness and imagination to take the film to it's inevitable conclusion, Verhoeven takes the low road, and though it may succeed on a purely visceral level, any meaning one could derive from the story dissolves like so many ashes in the wind, along with anything that would have made this a memorable film. And it's a shame, because Verhoeven has it at a higher level than much of what is offered in this genre, and he allows it to sink unnecessarily to one much lower.

Kevin Bacon does a good job of creating a character that is believable, if only on the surface, which seemingly serves Verhoeven's purposes perfectly. There's little depth to Bacon's portrayal, but it has more to do with his director's agenda than his own acting abilities. Verhoeven simply does not allow Bacon the time to develop Caine to any extent; the character is mainly a vessel around which Verhoeven can build his story, and toward that end, it works. The film would have been better served, however, had Verhoeven and Bacon collaborated more closely on at least developing a bond between Caine and the audience that would have prompted some emotional involvement on the viewers part, something that would have drawn them in a bit, rather than leaving them at the gate, as it were, as mere observers of an F/X laden extravaganza.

Elisabeth Shue comports herself well in the role of Linda McKay, Caine's willing accomplice in the ill-fated experiment, but it's basically a thankless part that offers little challenge, especially to an actor of Shue's caliber. The same can be said of Kim Dickens (so magnificent in the 2001 film, `Things Behind the Sun'). Her character, Sarah Kennedy, does little more than support the action and F/X. Both actors are capable of so much more, and deserve better than what they are given to work with here.

The supporting cast includes Josh Brolin (Matthew), Greg Grunberg (Carter), Joey Slotnick (Frank), Mary Randle (Janice) and William Devane (Dr. Kramer). Entertaining to a point, and even successful on a certain (low) level, `Hollow Man' is one of those films that leaves you contemplating what could have been. Like an annual fireworks display, it will give you some momentary thrills, but after awhile it'll begin to blend in with all the others you've seen, without anything special to set it apart. And it's too bad, because given the talent and abilities of those involved here, it could have been so much more. I rate this one 4/10.


I don't normally feel much of an incentive to comment on films I don't like, but in a case like this one, I just have to say something. This movie is terrible, illogical, and stupid. There are so many flaws in the storytelling that I don't even feel obliged to elaborate on because it's time for me to move on from this experience. The most annoying point is, however, that at no point in the film does anyone explain whether the motivations for Bacon's character's madness are due to a power trip or a physiological reaction to his condition.

Granted the special effects are impressive, and in the past Paul Verhoeven has done some good stuff (the director's cut of Robocop on DVD is great). However, this movie is stupid and generally doesn't come near to explaining the point or technical aspect of the subject matter, and instead settles for predictable action without any enjoyment.

 In short, as many other reviews here say (wish I had read them before...) - Stay away from this film!


Unfortunately, one of the best efforts yet made in the area of special effects has been made completely pointless by being placed alongside a lumbering, silly and equally pointless plot and an inadequate, clichéd screenplay. Hollow Man is a rather useless film.

Practically everything seen here has been done to death - the characters, the idea and the action sequences (especially the lift shaft!) - with the only genuinely intriguing element of the film being the impressive special effects. However, it is just the same special effect done over and over again, and by the end of the film that has been done to death also. I was hoping before watching Hollow Man that the Invisible Man theme, which is hardly original in itself, would be the basis of something newer and more interesting. This is not so. It isn't long before the film turns into an overly-familiar blood bath and mass of ineffectual histrionics - the mound of clichés piles up so fast that it's almost impressive.

On top of all this, Kevin Bacon does a pretty useless job and his supporting cast are hardly trying their best. Good points might be a passable Jerry Goldsmith score (but no competition for his better efforts), a quite interesting use of thermal imagery and the special effects. I was tempted to give this film three out of ten, but the effects push Hollow Man's merit up one notch.

4/10