Reviews

While one is expected to suspend your disbelief when watching any movie, this atrocity named "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" is just beyond ridiculous. Easily, this is one of the worst blockbusters ever made, and one of the most unbearable pieces of garbage released by a major Hollywood studio.

It's understandable that the core audience for this movie is almost exclusively teenagers, but the flick lowers every standard to such low levels that it becomes a joke. The producers may keep justifying this mess with the good old "it's just camp," or "it's just fun." Whatever; it doesn't fly. The movie is an insult to anyone with an IQ over 80. Namely:

• The Charlie's Angels can fly through the air, jump away from explosions every 10 minutes, and defy gravity on a constant basis for no reason at all. It's only funny the first twelve times...

• The paper-thin plot is laughable, replaced with an overwhelming amount of "Matrix-like" CGI effects displaying the girls dodging bullets in the air in slow motion. This is done so many times during the movie that it makes you hope nobody uses this effect ever again in a movie. Ever!

• Characters, all of the sudden, develop the ability to fly (Demi Moore).

• Characters, all of the sudden and without much explanation, go from being "bad: to being "good" (Thin Man), and from being "good" to being "bad" (Demi Moore, Robert Patrick).

• The jokes are lame, unfunny, and worst of all, rehashed straight off the first movie.

• John Cleese should fire his agent for getting him into this mess.

• Bernie Mac. Why, oh why?

• Did I mention the girls constantly fly away from explosions, and defy any law of physics with no apparent explanation (mind you, these Angels do not live inside the Matrix.)

With the overblown production budget of this horrendous flick, you could produce five or six half-decent movies. This movie is a disgrace, another example of the mindless trash that Hollywood keeps popping out. Avoid at all costs.

I give it a 1/10 because there's no "0" option in the rating.

"Max" is a potentially very interesting movie, but ends up being dull and irritating at times.

Giving that role to Noah Taylor must be one of the worst casting decisions that I've seen in a long time. He doesn't come even mildly convincing, doesn't look the part either, and his accent drifts back and forth from "German" to British English.

Interesting premise, but turned out to be a boring, dragging movie that doesn't tell us much. The bad acting doesn't help either.

I was very much looking forward to Ararat. In the last few years I read a lot about the genocide of 1915, and was interested in seeing how this tremendous story would be portrayed in a film, specially told from the perspective of a director of Armenian heritage, like Egoyan. I always believed this was a very important part of history that needed to be told.

Unfortunately I was very disappointed. I expected so much more, and despite a few scenes that lived up to the somber topic, the movie as a whole is weak and chaotic. The following is a list of some of the things that I didn't like:

• Too many subplots. The movie has way too many contemporary sub-characters living their own sub-plots, intertwined with the historical characters of 1915, and Gorky in 1934. It's very distracting, and many of these sub-plots add nothing to the story. The only contemporary characters we get to identify with are Raffi (David Alpay) and David (Christopher Plummer).

• Some of the acting was beyond sub-par. The performances of Arsinée Khanjian, Marie-Josée Croze, and specially Charles Aznavour are painful to watch at times. They barely show any emotions, one way or another, and make it very difficult for the viewer to identify with their own struggles.

• The movie gets too preachy at times. I believe the Armenian genocide of 1915 is a story horrible enough, that it doesn't require any additional emphasis or ideological bent to be told. Unfortunately we have the character of Ani (Arsinée Khanjian) constantly referring to the struggle of the Armenian people in very nationalistic terms, to the point of becoming preachy. The same can be said for some of the more energetic moments of Raffi, but it makes sense within the plot as he struggles to understand the motives that led his father to his tragic end.

In general, I thought it was an interesting effort, but the story could have been much more compelling if told in a more straightforward manner, without the distracting sub-plots, the inert secondary characters, and specially without the unnecessarily "preachy" parts. As others have mentioned in this board, it would have been a much compelling movie if it stuck exclusively to the story of the genocide of 1915, instead to jumping back and forth in time to have characters explaining to us the historical importance of the events that are being narrated.

This flick is pointless, plot-less and completely unentertaining. "Joe Dirt" is about 95 wasted minutes of your life that you'll never get back. Avoid this loser if you can.

As a history buff, I had a lot of fun with "Gladiator."

The actual plot for Gladiator was nothing new. As a matter of fact, it "borrows" a lot from "Macbeth", "King Lear", and "The Odyssey." And some of the dialogue was trite...

On the other hand, it's probably the most realistic depiction of the middle Roman Empire in film to date. The use of CGI was outstanding, specially the reconstruction of the Colisseum.

I enjoyed the minor details a whole lot: the dresses in the Roman empire had more to do with how people actually dressed in the Middle Ages, than the greco-roman "toga and sandal" vision that Hollywood created. Also, notice how the nobility wears blue colors: it was the most expensive color for fabrics, since very few things in nature have that pigmentation.

I enjoyed seeing the palaces with actual furniture, (unlike in classic Hollywood), and the nobility using glasses and glass utensils. Romans were incredibly skillful at glassworks. Unfortunately, only a few pieces have lasted until today.

It was also quite impressive how the movie starts by showing you why the Roman Empire was so powerful and lasted so long: their technology and war machinery was ages ahead of the rest of the known world. Most of Europe was still living in tribal societies. As we can see in the opening scenes, the tribes of Germania barely entered the bronze age when they got beaten by Roman war machinery.

And of course, I appreciated that the main character, Maximus, is not from the Laetium (Rome), but from Spain, one of the provinces of the Roman Empire since about 100BC. Spain, Portugal and Southern France (Hispania, Lusitania, and Galia) were the second most important provinces of Rome.

Spain was kind-of like their "Cambridge, Mass": they sent their future Caesars, senators and Emperors to the many Roman universities in Spain (Salamanca, Complutum, Caceres) and military academies. Even Julius Caesar, for instance, was educated in Spain.

With its minor flaws, "Gladiator" was definitely a great show, highly entertaining as well as educative.

Although I enjoyed the special effects and the CG scenery, which at times was breathtaking, I can't get over the HORRENDOUS acting (Radha Mitchell is particularly awful), the Grand-Canyon-sized plot holes, and the tacky lines the characters spew at any chance they have.

Why is it so difficult to make a decent sci-fi movie this days? Why nobody seems to care about little details like... THE PLOT? I put this film together in the same category with other cheesy, special effect-based sci-fi flops like "Supernova" and the infamously bad "Event Horizon."

Here in the States there's a very funny series of TV commercials for a brand a German beer. They show hillarious situations in which German individuals engage in normal activities using a German engineering approach. You hear a voiceover saying "Germans don't do comedy" and you see a very pathetic stand-up comedian telling bad jokes about factory production lines. You see a cold, passionless, avant-garde interpretation of "Romeo and Juliet" and a voiceover saying "Germans don't do romance." Then they prompt you to enjoy what they claim "Germans do best," which is the advertised beer. The series continues with other hillarious jokes of this sort.

Well, after watching this cold, passionless, awfully directed flick, I thought they should also add "Germans don't do sci-fi" to the beer commercial.

I could type until Kingdom Come the many, many reasons why this dog is a disaster. There's actually so many, that I'm not even going to list them. I will limit myself to listing just the main categories of "suckage":

1- Horrendous direction on the part of Josef Rusnak. "Amateurish direction" doesn't even cut it.

2- The writing by Rusnak and Centeno-Rodriguez is quite laughable at times, and unrealistic from beginning to end. The characters lack life. Nobody talks like they do in this movie.

3- With the exception of Vincent D'Onofrio, who's always great, acting in this movie SUCKS! Craig Bierko could have been replaced with a crash-test dummy, and Gretchen Mol sounds like she's just reading her lines. It's painful at times.

4- Action scenes are so awful they move to laughter! Take a look at the final fight, and it'll remind you of the beer commercial I mentioned above. The character of Jane Fuller should say: I'am being attacked by a psychopathic murdered, so I think I should start running now. At the count of three, start jogging veeeery slowly towards the elevator..."

This movie is not even good for rental. Avoid it or wait for it when it appears on network TV. If you want to see better movies on the same subject, check out "The Matrix" and "Dark City."

I expected Polanski to pick up a little bit, but I have the feeling that since he got lost in one-too-many euro-trash jet-set cocktail parties, he definitely lost it.

This flick starts quite well, gets boring and weak through the middle, and falls down horribly before it finishes. The end has to be one of the most anti-climatic, poorly directed I´ve seen in many, many years. It feels like they didn´t have enough cash to finish it properly... and you just want to go to the box office and ask for your money back.

Please, trust me. Don´t waste your time and money. I didn´t believe my friends and had to see it by myself. Don´t make the same mistake!!!

Pathetic attempt by radio shock jock Howard Stern to redeem his extremely negative image after utterly offending everyone and everything in the planet, and self-proclaiming "king of all media" (laugh). The whole point of the movie is to display Mr. Stern as a loving family man whose sense of humor is just misunderstood by the general American public.

It's not a bad movie, very funny at times, and shows a lot of care in the writing of the script. The sad part is that Mr. "family man" Stern still makes horrendous, tasteless jokes on his radio show, and just recently he aired some perversely disgraceful "jokes" (for lack of a better name) about the female victims of the Columbine high school shooting.

This movie did not change my view of Howard Stern; I still don't see him as a misunderstood, caring family man. He still is mean and tasteless in his radio show, and keeps pushing the limits of what's even ethical or responsible to broadcast.

I truly don't know where to start listing all the things that are wrong with this flick. I left the theater with a terrible headache, and feeling totally insulted. Does Michael Bay consider his target audience to be 12 year-old kids with attention deficit disorder? I find no other explanation for the long succession of flops that comprise this movie.

The story is weak, the acting is plainly horrendous, the shameless flag-waving is embarrassing, and the many plot-holes make the script look like the surface of the Moon.

I especially had a problem with the "suspension-of-disbelief" issue. I understand that when you go see an action film, you need to give some credit to the storyline in order to be able to enjoy it. For example, nobody knows how an alien looks like, or even if there are aliens at all, but we see "ET" and it does not bother us; this is so because the story is superbly told. Everyone knows that not everyone can survive a major explosion, but if the story makes sense and it's well told, we suspend our disbelief, give the creators some credit, and enjoy the show.

In "Armageddon" the (poorly developed) characters are surviving excrutiating life-threatening situations every two or three minutes. They always scape in the very last second, and most of the time totally unharmed. How trite! Once or twice is fine, but not every three minutes through the entire movie. It's cartoonish, and does nothing but to kill the magic that makes us enjoy movies: suspension of disbelief. How many explosions can they outrun? How many shots or ridiculously unbelievable situations can they scape without harm? Pleeeeeease! Of course, this is a Michael Bay product, so any attempt to analyze it in a logical way is pointless.

I certainly did not enjoy the radical conservative undertones through the movie (blatant bashing of Green Peace, only men take action while the women wait at home and catch the action on the TV screen, etc.), and the constant flag-waving to the point of ridiculous. I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but I don't appreciate flag-waving for the wrong reasons, and this movie has plenty of them! Other nationalities are reduced to plain caricatures of overused stereotypes (I felt like gagging every time they showed muslims praying in-masse, African children running in the jungle and pointing at the sky -like in a Microsoft commercial-, or every time the Russian astronaut from the Mir station opened his mouth -there's so many awful stereotypes one can take in a single movie!). Then, to please the close minded crowd this movie was intended to appeal, the only asteroid that hits the earth destroys Paris, of all places!

I'm pretty sure this movie was a great success among trailer-park dwellers, and Rush Limbaugh listeners nation-wide!

I couldn't know where to start!

I found just about every aspect of the movie poor and deplorable (except for a superb cinematography, to be fair). The acting is quite pathetic and embarrassing at times. The whole movie seems to gravitate towards beautiful poses of Brad Pitt with the sunshine through his hair and the wonderful Montana woods in the background, like in a bad shampoo commercial.

The character played by Julia Ormond is simply unbelievable! She is supposed to be in the 1910s, yet she behaves like a very promiscuous 90s woman. If the movie had any grasp on historical realism, this woman should have been ostracized from society, end up as an outcast. Instead, she jumps from bed to bed in her fiancee's house like there's no tomorrow, and nobody seems to be bothered about it!

The screenwriters add some characters to the story for the sole purpose to be killed and make our "heroes" look sad and puppy-eyed. Literally! Otherwise someone please explain to me the character of Isabel in the movie. She doesn't even have two decent lines in the script!

The worst element of the movie was the incredible amount of historical mistakes or anachronisms. There were too many to let you concentrate in this excuse for a plot. I'm a great enthusiast of movies that try to reflect an era, and pay lots of attention to every detail. The erroneous details were so numerous that I would burst in laughter at times. And this movie was made by the director of a movie like "Glory"! From the way they talk, to their apparel, to the tools they use, to every other detail, the movie as bad as "Titanic" as far as historical accuracy is concerned.

To illustrate with an example, at a point in the movie Susannah -Julia Ormond- pulls a portable photo reflex-camera on a tripod and takes idyllic pictures of the brothers in the Montana landscape... They are supposed to be in the 1910s-1920s! Cameras were as big as a TV set! And portable reflex cameras were not available as consumer products until the 1950s! Anyone that knows a bit about photography probably caught that major goof!

The movie is so plagued with goofs that makes it difficult for a serious movie-goer to concentrate on the story. I guess they really made the movie with one thing in mind: milking the cash out of those teenage fans of Brad! There's no other explanation for this awful flick.

Please avoid this movie at all costs if you don't like 3 hour- long shampoo commercials with very, very bad plots. You have been warned... unless of course you are a hardcore fan of Brad.

I know that comparing this film to Amadeus is trite, but if I do the exercise of choosing my favorite, I will pick "Immortal Beloved" for two simple reasons:

1- It's all about the music. Amadeus focuses on the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri, where their music seems to be a circumstantial element in the drama (in simple terms: the underdog hates the genius because he will never be that good, hence the dramatic starter). The music of "Ludwig Van" (as Alex, from "A Clockwork Orange" would say) is central in "Immortal Beloved", and parts of the movie focus on what drove this genius to create some of the greatest musical compositions of western civilization.

From a strict cinematographic standpoint, the sequence that shows an episode on Ludwig's childhood that allegedly inspired the "Ode to Joy", the last movement of his Symphony no. 9, simply put, PRICELESS. Although the film as a whole may have a few flaws and its screenplay could have used some improvements as far as silly love story and dialogs are concern, that sequence alone is an example of outstanding filmmaking.

As a film school graduate I believe that sequence should be shown to film students anywhere. It's simply put, brilliant.

2- Gary Oldman. He just plays a fantastic role, his best since "JFK" and "Dracula." After all, Gary is much more believable as Beethoven than Hulce was as Mozart. I think it was that maniacal giggle of Amadeus which constantly turned me off, and made me think of it as a poor character development, only emphasizing simple traits to the n power. I think we got the point about Amadeus being a spoiled boy genius at the very beginning of the flick...

In resume, a pretty good movie about the life and inspiration of Beethoven, with a few storyline flaws, but compensated by incredibly beautiful imagery and translation of his music to a cinematic medium.

Beautifully shot film with one of the greatest soundtracks of the last ten years, composed by the mysterious Dead Can Dance. It's a pity they explicitly decided never to publish the soundtrack on CD. Also Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance plays one of the main roles in the movie.

This is a magical story of an orphan confined in a claustrophobic, orwellian institution, somewhere in post-WWII Europe (it's never specified where). There they keep children from all over the world that show some form of telepathic skill to experiment with those powers. Our main character starts to discover, somehow, that he has a mission, that he's the carrier of a strange message…

Surrealistic, strange, "lynchian" at times, the movie flows at ease and keeps you on your toes from beginning to end. Stylish cinematography by Jaime Peracaula, solid screenplay and direction by the enigmatic Villaronga, and -once again- a soundtrack that would charm any fan of Dead Can Dance.

Highly recommendable if you have a chance to see it, specially since it was never published to video and there are no plans to ever release it in such format.

One of the strangest movies ever made in Spain.

I was seriously surprised by this movie. It was simply a beautiful experience, one that opened a whole culture for me.

The movie grows in you! When I remember scenes from "Smoke Signals" I have the feeling that I actually travelled with Victor and Thomas to Arizona, that I learned about their daily lives, and like Thomas, that I learned to forgive and heal the wounds of the past.

Wonderful script, outstanding acting, and careful direction.

Now, can someone tell me where can I find fried bread in Boston? Thanks!

I had the feeling that Pedro Almodovar's creativity went downhill in the mid-90s, after "Women at the Verge..." Since that wonderful film, Almodovar has done nothing but to provide us with weak stories and movies with extremely unrealistic situations.

I personally consider "Tacones Lejanos", "La flor de mi secreto" (yuuuck!), and "Kika" his less consistent work. Here Pedro Almodovar tries to stick to his formula by copying himself, recycling characters and situations he already sold to us.

Besides the incredible plot-holes and unrealistic scenarios, "Kika" has two things that I really disliked in the film: First, Veronica Forque as "Kika." Ms. Forque has to be one of the most annoying actresses I've ever seen. She just will not shut up! Good lord! Second, seeing Peter Coyote poorly dubbed into Spanish is almost laughable. If you want to enjoy some good Almodovar, see any of his previous stuff. This movie is weak.

This movie is not the best Coppola ever, but one of his greatest accomplishments as a director. He was so detail oriented in the production of this flick that eventually led Zoetrope Studios to bankruptcy. Back in 1982 this movie became one most expensive films of the season!

Among many things: first movie ever with a whole sequence fully computer generated (the opening credits), the recreation of downtown Las Vegas, and the Nevada desert inside the studio, the use of multiple computer-guided cameras (as developed by Lucas)...

Although the plot is kind-of-weak and could have used some improvement, the movie became famous for featuring one of the most beautiful scores ever put in a film. The soundtrack by Tom Waits literally carries the weight of the movie and guides the action.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the outstanding cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. The light and the colors are just beautiful: each shot alone is a perfect picture.

If I ever make a movie, I just hope it looks and sounds just half as good as "One from the heart" does.

As I mentioned before, the storyline is weak and too predictable, leaving you the feeling that Coppola left the screenwriting aside in order to focus almost exclusively on the mindbending technical details of the flick. It's worth checking just for the cinematography and the soundtrack alone.

Almodovar's "Live Flesh" (Carne Tremula) is a very solid movie, probably the most solid and mature screenplay of this original Spanish filmmaker.

The only thing that may disappoint viewers, specially those familiar with his work, is the fact that "Live Flesh" seems to feed off his previous work. Parts of the film seem to be directly extracted from "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down" (Atame), "Women at the verge..." (Mujeres...), and many others. Half way through the movie I had the feeling I was watching "Tie me up, tie me down" all over again. As a matter of fact the characters of Victor and Ricky are almost the same! Unfortunately, Liberto Rabal is not even half the actor that Antonio Banderas can be. At times it felt Mr. Rabal was just reading his lines without passion. On the other hand, Javier Bardem, Pepe Sancho, and Angela Molina do a pretty decent job, as it's expected from such reliable actors.

Other than that, the movie is pretty entertaining and the plot keeps you on your toes. The author has definitely improved the suspense in the screenplay, as compared to his early work. If I didn't see "Atame," this flick would be my favorite Almodovar.

One of the things I could least expect for 1998 was the renaissance of 60s-70s Euro-trash sexploitation B-movies as major cult objects for this generation.

Technically, artistically, and all around, this is not the greatest movie ever made. It lacks money, blockbuster actors, and cool special effects, but it's a great portrait of its time. What I like the most about Jess Franco's movies is that they are so "late-60s": the music, the clothing, the places, the lack of sexual inhibition...

"Vampyros Lesbos" is probably the epitome of "bad sixties" low budget films, but although it lacks in material resources, it oozes imagination and kistch. No wonder it has been recently resurrected as a cult classic, and the re-release of the soundtrack has reached the alternative record lists.

A must-see for anyone looking for the meaning of the word "groovy."

"Gattaca" surprised me in many ways than one. To start, it is one of those few Sci-fi masterpieces that don't insult your intelligence or make you suspend all disbelief. It's realistic, smart and sad. Very sad.

I was moved by the exquisite dramatic developments behind the main storyline. Unfortunately we all know that this type of societal determination through genetics is what the future holds for our children. The signs are everywhere. One day this movie will be recognized as way ahead of its time.

But the best of the movie, what moved me like nothing else was the gorgeous soundtrack by British composer Michael Nyman. This score has to be one of the most beautiful and adequate ones I've ever heard in a film. I got a copy of the soundtrack after I saw the movie and I was captivated for weeks. I would like to quote Andrew Niccol when he describes the Nyman' score in the inner notes of the CD:

"Film music is best when it says something that the actors and the picture can not express. When it can convey both hope and sorrow in the same composition, then it is truly remarkable."

This movie could pretty well be described as the weakest, less inspired work of Bigas Luna in the last few years. All the freshness, irony, and visual appeal of "Jamon, Jamon" is missing, unfortunately replaced by a direction more focused on the "shock factor" than on creating a more solid structure.

As far a "values" go, the movie contains some disturbingly twisted messages that most people could find indeed offensive. I seriously doubt any victim could fall so deeply in love with her cruel torturer, as Bambola does. From that point on, the movie loses all credibility, and everything starts going downhill. Bigas Luna pretends to shock you with a display of disturbing imagery and disturbed characters, but in the process forgets how to make the movie consistent. A wasted opportunity.