Reviews

I've never been impressed by Cocteau's films but I give him credit for having the energy to put his personal takes on myth and symbolism on film. Unfortunately, one really needs to be steeped in the various characters of Greek Myth to appreciate this one. The imagery is quite imaginative and the situations are sometimes funny but the whole never comes together. It's just one pointless existential tableau after another, which may be Cocteau's aim but it fails as substantial entertainment. The various contemporary celebrities that have cameos do little and add little to the film.

I can really only recommend this film to those who want to learn about Cocteau's film style or those who like to see the Classic Greek myths used in a mid-20th century film medium. Otherwise, it's a jumble of confusing dialogue and imagery to be taken not so seriously.

It's the starkness and the banality of Ghetto life contrasting with the intense human dramas that make this film memorable.

The brutality of the Nazis and their obsession with statistics and order is well shown.

This is one of those films that only black and white photography has the power to portray effectively.

This film of the Ghetto Jews' grim reality of processing and subjugation is not something you will ever forget, with the Jewish characters' all to brief time on screen and individual their stories intensifying your pity of their fates.

A top rate drama from post-war Japan!

A family struggling to survive the toils of daily life is portrayed excellently. We get to see the effects of farming life and the family's scant opportunity for relief from such work.

Don't avoid it just because it's "in black and white" because you'd be missing out on one of the key films that form the solid base that all post-war Japanese cinema stands on. Technique and storytelling combine for a satisfying and truly human film without relying on the devices of obvious, heavy symbolism too often seen in quasi-religious dramatic films from this period.

The famous story of the mutiny on His Majesty's Ship "The Bounty" is given (unjustly) its most famous treatment here. The source material, a book by two authors, may be the cause of the historical inaccuracy displayed in this very overblown, maudlin movie.

Charles Laughton as Capt. Bly is sadly wasted in a cardboard role while a miscast Clark Gable impresses as being as British as baseball. Laughton's performance is of the vaudevillian Oil-Can Harry type, complete with paste-on bushy eyebrows and a constant scowl. He orders so many contemptible punishments -which are NOT on the historical record- it's as if the condescending producers pushed the screenwriter to pad the film with Bly's laughable over-the-top parade of brutalities so the "simple" audience "gets" Bly is a maniac.

The secondary cast of deck hands are a bunch of grandfathers! The movie is slanted pitilessly against Bly, whose reputation has since been rehabilitated among scholars and naval buffs. The movie may have impressed 1930s audiences but even the less than stellar modern remakes are better than this dated and flawed production.

This is the all-time classic presenting a microcosm of personality types quarantined together for jury duty.

Prejudices are revealed and shown for what they are, logic kings assumptions, consensus is fought for by the more cogently thinking members against the "mob" mentalities present and the verdict is something you'll have to watch the movie for, to find out.

Iconic Henry Fonda is the archetype of the mature, clear-thinker on the side of justice while the solid "everyman" actor Jack Klugman is the last of "the twelve" still living at present. Do yourself a favour and watch this film in his lifetime to be part of its living legend.

Other reviewers re-tell the plot here but I won't because I consider that a spoiler. This is a pretty good science-fiction/horror movie with likable actors portraying a family and some really nasty bad guys. I couldn't help but think the lead actor looks a lot like actor Mark Hamill.

The sets are great and the dangers lurking will give you the creeps. The music score is appropriate for the film, with tonalities equal to the menace affecting the characters.

Seven out of ten stars for being well-made, including the special effects, which are quite realistic and detailed.

This movie "wows" many for superficial reasons I'd say. Regarding its autobiographical angle, director Fellini picks handsome Marcelo Mastroianni to portray him in this self-portrayal fantasy and the beautiful Claudia Cardinale as his saviour figure. Both were fine but the material needed darkening.

Lots of movie-business buffoonery and wild characters make for some smirking fun but it's all very euro-weird, like a Godard film drunk on champagne. Dated look at playboy-director type in crisis doesn't make me care a whit about him... We're observers of an artist in flux who seems to take nothing seriously but his flawless hair-do.

"8 1/2" had its' day in the sun, however now it can be seen as just an exercise in fluffy silliness in comparison with the more politically charged movies emergent in the sixties.

The critical savaging of The Alamo epic was grossly unfair and perhaps an indication of the immaturity and short attention span of today's movie critics and audiences.

I didn't mind the long build-up to the excellent battle sequences because it added depth and background to the Alamo story which was largely missing in the 1960 version. Quaid was powerful as Sam Houston, Thornton was likable in a tender characterization of David (Davey)Crockett and Jason Patric's Jim Bowie was hard as his steel knife. Patrick Wilson did his best as Colonel Travis -I don't know how old the real Colonel Travis was in 1836 or what his personality was like- but the role would've been better suited to an older actor.

The Alamo's long, detail and character-driven prelude was a risky decision by the director, but pays off with repeat viewings of the film. A director's cut would be even better.

In this film, a hairy-chested card-carrying communist French screenwriter interacts with his wife, an American movie producer and the director Fritz Lang (who plays himself).

What are my two stars for? The scenery is beautiful as is his younger wife Brigitte Bardot, but that's about all as far as what's worth watching in this pallid filmic exercise.

There is some scattered philosophizing about the art of film and a long, dull marital-blues scene taking place in the couple's apartment. The main characters are oddly detached and remote from one another and the only one shown doing anything remotely resembling film work is Fritz Lang.

It offers little insight into the film-making art, negating it's odd reputation as a film about said subject. Even as a satire it flops because the characters are weak and the story never advances beyond where it started.

Dramatic music is cued in two scenes wherein the discomforted, discontented Brigitte Bardot character says "I'm taking a walk". You'll feel like doing same less than half an hour in to this turkey.

Okay, this one was 11 minutes less than 3 hours, but if you include the trailers etc. beforehand it's 3 hours plus. It felt like an eternity to watch.

It's a doc about the repetitive daily lives of European monks who have taken a vow of silence. That's it. Almost three hours of it. They should show it to prisoners as a form of psychological torment.

When the camera is pointed at the faces of individual monks I wanted to scream: "Where's the narration?!! Sure, you show us their daily routines but what about some analysis?"-- I wanted to leave before it was finished. Total asceticism doesn't translate as a film-able or interesting subject.

Avoid "Indian Tomb" unless you're ten or younger. This corny adventure film, although colorfully filmed on location in India, never rises to the occasion. The characters are all one-dimensional, especially the "hero" of the film. His role has barely any dialog and his action scenes are weak and unconvincing. The female lead is beautiful but looks about as "Indian" as Michelle Pfeiffer.

The main Indian characters are mostly white actors in make-up! Their long, talky scenes will tempt you to press "fast-forward". Some parts are done well, such as the snake-dance and the leper cave, but they don't make up for long stretches of cardboard performances.

The dialog the actors speak comes from a seventh-rate comic book. The head-priest character has a ridiculously dubbed voice.

Though directed in 1959 by the usually great Fritz Lang, it more resembles a simplistic, lesser adventure serial from the 1930s. Lang bombed if he thought he was producing a work for mature audiences.

I was very disappointed in this film. Suitable viewing for children and Fritz Lang completists only.

The most terrible dictator of the 20th century is portrayed convincingly by the star Richard Basehart. The ruthless hate and mania of Hitler knew no bounds and this film portrays Hitler unsympathetically at different stages of his ascent to power in Germany. There is a perverse fascination to see Basehart's Hitler suffer in his personal life.

Though the characters portrayed were real, this is a drama and not a documentary. If you're looking for a comprehensive study of Hitler's life, many books at the library are available. Watch this film for a straightforward look at Hitler's psychotic character as it may have manifested itself to those closest to him.

This movie offers an "inside view" of Hitler's relationships with the women closest to him, Geli Raubal and Eva Braun. We also see the possibility that a pivotal and controversial event in the Nazi's rise to power--the burning of the Reichstag--was in all probability an arson committed by the Nazis themselves.

The martial soundtrack by Hans J. Salter is an added bonus.

It's better to read books on this subject...the extra DVD textual material about the life of the real Gouzenko was the best part. I found myself skipping through some talky parts about 40 minutes into it. It has a docudrama style of direction which gets tiresome. The actors playing the Soviets are a bit stiff, but Harry Townes as the defector Igor Gouzenko is good.

Definitely something you have to be in the right mood for. If you like spy stuff, be warned this is no James Bond adventure but rather an apparently fact-based account of an international incident. It's set ten years after Gouzenko's defection to Canada with top-secret Soviet documents in hand.

Good for its type but I can see how it would quickly disinterest a large percentage of viewers.

A great late-night horror flick with action and comedy. I got it on DVD from a St. Claire 3-Disc collection called "The Living Dead".

It's a better than average directed (for a B-movie) tale with a swinging Voodoo-Lounge soundtrack, ghoulish zombies galore and a charismatic "wolf" lead character played brilliantly by the late William Joyce.

Some interesting trivia I've learned: Bill Joyce and the female lead, Heather Hewitt, had unwittingly done a scene in the water during a real life "multiple-large-sharks-spotted" scare. Director Del Tenney never told them about it when he later learned of it.

Interesting look at the cocktail culture in 1960s Miami in this one.

This movie's release-date title is "I Eat your Skin" which is a masterpiece of naming. I give it 10 stars for vintage kicks and William Joyce's cool persona! Must've been a fun actor be around.

Tough, macho Nigel Davenport matches wits with firm English captain Michael Caine as they team up to kick axis butt in this two-fisted war movie that will keep you glued to the screen.

The harshness of the unforgiving desert and the danger of combat is expertly presented by director Andre de Toth. The storyline is intelligent and the characters believable whereas the battle scenes are excellent as well as a scene in a desert windstorm that is my favorite. Nigel Davenport is an underrated actor and the tension between him and Michael Caine is nicely understated, which gives it more power. One of the top war movies from its era.

I have a VHS tape of this which I recorded off late-night TV but the film itself is grainy in quality, not my tape's recording quality. It's an intricately plotted horror-mystery which will keep you guessing until the last scene.

It's great to see "The Skipper" (Alan Hale, Jr.) from Gilligan's Island and "Mr. Carlson" (Gordon Jump) from the TV comedy WKRP acting together. The lead actor is an unknown but does very well as the perplexed young protagonist.

It's nicely paced and never obvious who is, and if there really is, a killer. Interestingly, the last time I re-watched this movie was the very night that actor Gordon Jump died. I hope this film will come out on DVD soon, because many horror and mystery fans will enjoy it.

It's not often I give two stars to a horror movie because horror is my favorite genre. A movie can be BAD in that it isn't a masterpiece but can be enjoyable on the basis of unintentional humour, bizarre characters, etc. A case in point are a great number of horror/sci-fiction movies from the 1940s to 1980s era. They are enjoyable for genre-buffs and guilty-pleasure seekers because their "badness" is entertaining. However, this movie has none of the humour or effective gory scenes of the "Piranha" (1978) original.

I suppose in 1995 it was the heyday of political correctness so gore on TV was at a minimum. Now in the mid-2000s with the C.S.I. shows, TV's an absolute blood-fest! (Good for us horror fans!)

William Katt and Alexandra Paul are no Bradford Dillman and Heather Menzies (the original 1978 stars.) It's not Katt's and Paul's faults but the writers and director who created this tepid turkey. How the main characters interact is the main flaw of this movie. I won't say how because that is part of the plot.

This TV movie probably had a bigger budget than the original but flopped as good horror, as can be seen from the user votes here. Stick with the 1978 original if you're in the mood for a killer-fish movie!

A fun late-night movie with genuine chills. The soundtrack is quite unique and atmospheric: lots of freaky vocals and shrill instrumentation. Roger Kellaway is the composer. Richard Jaeckel's detective character is brilliantly hard-nosed. The interplay between him and his partner is funny. Casey Kasem shows up as a coroner which is a weird surprise. Cool 70's monster flick that apparently had some production problems but is satisfying nonetheless for fans of the horror and sci-fi genres. It's the only movie I've watched with Cathy Lee Crosby in it. I remember her from my younger days in the 70's-80's as one of the three hosts of "That's Incredible" on TV.

Ed Nelson is the father of Christopher S. Nelson, who starred in WITHOUT WARNING (1980) with Jack Palance and David Caruso. They both share the middle name "Stafford". Wow, how cool is that: His dad being in a 1950s horror movie and then he gets to be in one in the 1980s!

"Night of the Blood Beast" is a great title. It takes places mostly inside an isolated laboratory, and fans of amateur radio will have much to analyze here, as radio communications and electromagnetism are integral to the plot.

I think Ed Nelson had a small cop role in "Scarface". From what I've read on the 'net, his son Chris Nelson continues acting on the stage and has a son who acts, too.

A talented multi-generational acting family!

This is one of Roger Corman's trilogy of comedy-horrors. It has a comedic appeal that may be overlooked by those expecting the seriousness of a straightforward sea-monster flick.

If you approach it as an absurdist comedy, there is a lot of humor to be found in it. For example,the guy who makes animal noises and the protagonist spy-hero's self-important monologues are very funny in a Mad-Magazine-satire way.

The lead hoodlum character bears resemblance to a seafaring Humphrey Bogart! All in all, a fun caper film with dark humor. I give it 7 out of 10 stars based mostly on its originality, the weird monster, and the high SATIRIC content.

I bought the Volume 2 DVD of the Jim Bowie TV series at Wal-Mart and was entertained by its contents! Three episodes which feature entertaining actors, stories and fight scenes! So what if it's low-budget; Have you noticed that modern TV and movies are 99% monstrous mega-budget junk?! Jim Bowie is retro-cool action from a simpler time and conjures up fond memories of visiting Frontierland and Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland! Scott Forbes plays well as the strapping Bowie and his narration adds a nice extra touch to these episodes. I'm probably a bit biased because I'm a fan of all things vintage, but if you enjoy "boy's adventure" themed movies and books like Tom Sawyer you'll appreciate this series. I'm on the hunt for the other volumes!

Whereas Saving Private Ryan's plot was a "situation" rather than a story--it's fatal flaw in my opinion)-- this harrowing film of the Korean War is a well paced and heart-wrenching tale of two brothers caught up in one of the twentieth century's most vicious conflicts.

The superbly realistic battle scenes are more brutal than any war movie I've ever seen...it makes you realize that combat is one of the most horrifying of all human experiences. In film it is a good thing; It is necessary to communicate and teach the horror of war.

By the way, "Tae Guk Gi" is the name of the South Korean flag. I give this movie ten out of ten stars.