Reviews

Well, yeah, OK, it's overall not that great of a film, but it does have Patrick Warburton, that hunky stud, stripped to the waist for most of the film, and in a peak moment, having his broad back and muscular shoulders mercilessly lashed for what seems to be an hour but is probably only like four or five minutes. Oh, Puddy!

I was caught up in the lore of DLD - until I finally saw it. It has a huge flaw, and it's not the purported ineptness of the narrative film-makers. It's the unethical and condescending, manipulative and immature behavior of the documentary film-makers, Joel DeMott in particular. She boasts early on that she's never been to the Midwest and that supercilious attitude carries her right into a disaster of her own making. This film is more about the breakdown of the documentary film than it is about the breakdown of the narrative one. I left DLD with no respect or empathy for Joel and Jeff. And I can't believe that anyone would rate DLD higher than American Movie in any respect. American Movie is better made, explores the psyche of the demented "true believer" much better, and actually says something honest about the world. DLD just shows how sheltered a young East Coast privileged girl can be, and how poorly prepared she is to make a documentary.

The American Heritage Dictionary lists approximately 14 definitions for the word "suck." I would like to nominate a 15th: "Slackers." It's not funny, it's not campy, it's not so-bad-you-have-to-laugh funny, it's just limp and lifeless. Kick it and it may twitch, but just as a reaction. There's no independent life inside. That scratching sound you hear in the background in certain scenes is the screenwriter and director scraping the bottom of the barrel of other teen comedies looking for some laughs. It's a derivative example of a derivative genre. It's redundant. It has Mamie Van Doren in a bathtub. It has non-actors portraying non-students. It's a non-film, anti-art and flatulent, but not in a fun way.

A white view of Black culture, this string of unfunny, racist cliches > makes me wonder what the actors who accepted these one-dimensional roles were thinking. The whole production was a mess, and the slimy parody of Tarantino was just idiotic.

Ouch, bad movies really hurt! Ouch, bad movies really hurt! Ouch,

bad movies really hurt! Ouch, bad movies really hurt! Ouch, bad

movies really hurt! Ouch, bad movies really hurt! Ouch, bad movies

really hurt! Ouch, bad movies really hurt! Ouch, bad movies really

hurt!

OK, this is a genre film, a B-film. But it represents the worst, most cynical aspects of teen slasher genre films I have ever seen. I won't reveal the identity of the supposed serial murderer but I will say that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY the person shown by the film to be the murderer could have done all of the crimes. Beyond that are all the typical complaints--bad motivation, bad plotting, bad characters, REALLY bad red herrings and very, very sloppy writing. If you choose to avoid only one movie this year, this is the one to avoid!

This is pure existential suspense, a film noir classic from the country where the term was coined. Its many remakes have never come close to capturing the nailbiting suspense and potent philosophical overtones that this original version possesses. It is a classic of the genre, in many ways the purest example, the epitome, of postwar European noir

This was a beautiful and captivating film, richly detailed, sumptuously colorful, with wonderfully nuanced characters and a deeply moving and tragic central love story. The portrayal of Orfeu's descent into the Underworld, where he finds Euridice, is a shimmering and powerful moment of abject agony and transcendent love.

This charming film features uniformly excellent performances by the four leads. The director is successful at blending the magical realism of Garcia Marquez with the sensuousness of "Like Water for Chocolate" and the romantic comedy of classic screwball films of the 1930s and 1950s.

This film has great production values and a wonderful cast. But the most compelling aspect of the film is its soundtrack, one of the best I have heard in years. I hope it gets released. as it has fantastic music by April March, Pat Irwin, Sissy Bar, RuPaul, Saint Etienne, and much more.

Well, maybe it's not more inept than BOXING HELENA, but it is "hands-down" less interesting than MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE. I kept looking to see if the extras were suppressing giggles, then maybe I thought you could see a boom mike in a couple of scenes. Will this film have any life other than as a free come-on at the SCIENTOLOGY Hollywood Center?

The fewer words said about this masterpiece of trash, the better. Everything about this production is mind-numbingly awful. The acting, the continuity, the character development....But I must shine a spotlight on the absolute worst and most contemptible aspect of this piece of tripe, the script. What were they thinking? This question refers to every moment of dialogue and action, but the Ninth Circle of Hell is surely reserved for the "surprise" ending foisted upon the straggling few viewers who actually make it to the end of this pool of cinematic cess. I won't spoil it for those among us who haven't seen, or who have blotted out from their minds, the last several minutes of this waste of celluloid, but suffice it to say that when we "wake up" from this awful nightmare that is "Boxing Helena," none of us is rested, or better for the time spent in a narcotized coma. This gets my vote for worst film ever made, beating out even "Showgirls" and "Manos, The Hands of Fate." View it at your own peril, and don't say you weren't warned.

"Happiness" is a terrific, strange, brutal and comic assault on Americana. It is strengthened by the superb performances of a singularly well chosen cast, headed in my estimation by the surprising, gruellingly honest portrayal of a striving loner and loser by Philip Seymour Hoffman. You could also apply that description to the characters played by Jane Adams, Dylan Baker and many others of the fine cast.

Yeah, the theme includes some shocking material, but it's a valuable and incisive view into a lot that is true about who we are and how we live. In many ways both harsher and more droll than the profoundly unsettling "Welcome to the Dollhouse," "Happiness" strikes a nerve that made one of my fellow audience members say, after the film, "I need to take a shower."

It's deserving of the awards it's received so far, and worthy of more. Louise Lasser in particular, as well as Hoffman and Adams, should receive acting awards for their on-the-edge-between-pathos-and-hilarity performances.