Mikelito Reviews

Interstellar (2014)

Kitschy overlong soap opera.

[3/10 · 4 June 2017]

It's embarrassing to think that stories like this are mistaken for SciFi.

As for the "Sci" it only helps to drag a long a family story into - probably (who knows) - eternity and back.

Whenever the story gets stuck some miracle "scientific fact" appears to help it move along.

By the way, that Mathew M. actor ... who can he convince of being in a position to be chosen for all the stuff that role is capable of....

Of course you get the cliché robot and the cliché computer (à la HAL) and all the rest of it.

I guess Zimmer is a good composer but this constant barrage of holier- than-holy church music only now and then interspersed with kitsch is only letting you know how you should be on your knees in tears regarding this "universal story of love and family" ... I'm guessing this has to be one of the slogans to market this soap opera over x amount of galaxies ... or one ... who cares.

A few stars for the visual stuff but the content ... oh the content ...

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

bad writing ... bad camera .... action !!

[4/10 · 3 January 2013]

if sam raimi got the job of directing, at least this would have been entertaining.

let's see: a really badly done movie - it looks like made for TV. horrible choice of actors. gaping mouths galore. looks like they couldn't even get the most often used clichés right. no scene really had some discernible suspense. camera is awful. goldblum is awful, the slowest actor on earth in an action movie ... why ... ?

the lighting alone is horrible as it changes even within scenes, amateurish stuff, was mister spielberg really present here?

there is no thread here, everything jumps from one mess to the next incoherent mess.

this review is almost as incoherent as this movie.

Burn After Reading (2008)

Recreating the 70s ... or at least trying to

[4/10 · 13 October 2008]

From the previews I was expecting a lot of over-acting and I was right.

Still there are a number of positive things about this movie:

• For once there is hardly anyone under 30-years-old on the screen which is in sharp contrast to the baby faces that Hollywood inundates its audiences with.

• The filming locations were pleasant. No generic La-La Land.

• You could easily imagine how funny a movie like this would have been in the 70s with actors like Alan Arkin, Peter Falk, George Segal, Ruth Gordon, Paula Prentiss. Perhaps I'm a little sentimental...

• Hats off to Rasche and Simmons playing 2 CIA bureaucrats, they made everything out of very little and they were funnier with the few lines they had than probably all the other actors. Why? Because they understand you don't have to overact every single word!!

People really looked old in this one, those HD cameras are very cruel!

On to the negative points:

• The scenes of people getting shot audibly shocked the audience. Comedies only work when deaths occur in "funny" or absurd ways.

• I guess this was a comedy even though it could have used at least twice more jokes.

• Brad Pitt isn't really all that much of an actor, now that the sweet bird of youth visibly has left him I guess he's lost most of the charm that people must see in him.

• Swinton is nasty ... in the movie ... I don't think she did anything to make her part entertaining, let alone funny. But I also don't think she can. She's best in roles of fringe weirdos and emotionless outsiders.

All in all the sad thing about movies today for me is this: They aren't light-hearted anymore. Too much money involved. I found myself constantly guessing what this movie would mean for each actor's career. The movie world is way too uptight. Yes I loved the 60s and 70s when writers, directors, actors mostly seemed to just throw themselves into movies. Everything seems to be calculated to death these days.

Original Sin (2001)

Unbelievably bad - sad, sad state of movies today

[2/10 · 21 July 2008]

I've yet to see an entire movie with A. Jolie because like Tom Cruise she makes me turn off or switch the channel after only minutes...

This time I decided to keep watching for some reason. Maybe because these 2 people (Banderas & Jolie) are regarded as sex symbols by the majority of their respective opposite sex.

Well, you can't help but compare these leading actors to the ones that have done movies like this before: Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Gregory Peck ...

Now whatever you think about those iconic actors, they had charisma and they could - in their own way - convey even the cheesiest of cliché feelings that some writers put words to and some directors put movements to.

Well to cut things short: Banderas is a piece of wood, Jolie cannot act at all.

Look at any scene that Jolie is in: She doesn't do anything with it! Just like S. Johansson and the whole slew of new and (sort of) young actors. One could argue that if you have gargantuan rubber boats lining your mouth your expression is severely hampered to the point of rendering you an expressionless freak of nature. But we are not talking about the Elephant Man here...

James Lipton somehow finds it necessary to interview people like Jolie about the "art of acting". Evidently it's not the mastery of the acting profession that influences his choices but some other ghastly satanic perversion. Or maybe just marketing and money. Hard to tell any difference...

Oh there are so many horrific travesties in this movie:

When Jolie's character acts coy and seduces Bandera's character in the beginning - oh the humanity! There is nothing sublime, there is no honor, ... there is just hammy high school acting. Just the natural instincts and flirting of a professional ... whatever ... but no acting I could detect.

Or when the man beats up the woman - that scene is horrible! She actually defends herself, there's nothing theatrically exaggerated about it. Like a white trash couple fighting in the street and you are sick watching it...

The story is horrible and implausible and not worth mentioning. Maybe this movie was just an excuse for a couple of stale love scenes. They couldn't even get those right...! Oh why don't they cut to a fireplace anymore and spare us the misery...?

But then the very supposed sexuality of both leading actors is just like how they behave in front of the camera (some actually call it "acting") - S.T.E.R.I.L.E.

What a world...

Good Will Hunting (1997)

Good Will Bluffing - An Adolescent Smugfest

[3/10 · 7 July 2008]

When Hollywood is trying to grasp what an "intelligent person" is like, they fail so miserably, finding it hard putting words in the mouth of the purported "genius".

Right, any genius walks around trying to rub in his superiority at every instance. Sure, they hang out in bars and pick fights – it's not like they are (generalizing wildly) autistic nerds who never have a tan.

Plus, if you are a genius you know all about Math and History and Politics and of course you're constantly up to date with current events and a thorough analysis of them. Coz these things, like, all go together n stuff, y'know?

Plus, you walk around with a smirk all the time. You are just a smug son of a you-know-what, that's how it is, y'all.

And of course you smoke, like someone who never smoked before, but you smoke coz it's like cool n stuff, y'know. And you're different. That is understood.

And of course you can fight – you're a bully. A bully who finds time to study 10.000 books whenever he doesn't lift weights. And whenever he doesn't smoke or drink beer because he follows a strict health regimen.

And you date a 30-something college student – Minnie Driver. Well, I won't even comment Matt Damon. Team America has hit the nail on the head already.

This movie is a daydream of a Beavis & Butthead type student (in other words 95% of them): "Yeah, that's what I would be like if I was a genius." But stupid people and stupid authors in this case cannot imagine the lives of geniuses.

The Ice Storm (1997)

It works not

[2/10 · 4 May 2008]

When you just take a "family comedy" and invert all the clichés you still don't have something worth watching.

I'm amazed at how quickly some movies manage to be annoying: You know you're going to not like a movie when in the first scene a hollow-brained Kate Holmes mouths a 2-sentence idiotic summary of Dostojewski's "Brothers Karamasov".

Every single scene, every sentence tries its hardest to be "different" - this is more disturbing than the movie trying to be disturbing...

This is uninvolving and unbelievable from the first moment with the actors, directors and writers being unable to create something. Maybe it's just Ang Lee who evidently doesn't understand Western life. I guess the movie would work if it was set in Japan or South Korea.

It looks like a patchwork of scenes which themselves could be moderately funny mini movies.

I don't find the cast terrific, it is exactly the type of people you expect in such an attempt at "Darkness", "Europeanism", "Cynicism" or whatever it wants to be.

This is probably for Americans who'd love to watch European movies from the 70s but don't want to read subtitles. It's really weird when Hollywood picks up something from the past and tries to re-do it.

Uh...one final word on "politics". The Nixon era is repeatedly cited through inept means such as TV clips. Why...? So this is set in the early Seventies! Wow! Yeah! This makes the movie all the more good and credible and plausible! Right? Right...

Check Beatty's "Shampoo" for useless references to the Nixon era that are supposed to give the movie an edge that it doesn't have.

It's wishy washy just like all the stories in this movie.

The Little Thief (1988)

Same old same old - French male fantasy

[3/10 · 21 April 2008]

Truffaut originally wanted to do this movie, but died. He seems to have left behind notes. What might they have contained, I wonder: "Alright, there's this young chick, and she's all horny and a juvenile delinquent and she just does what she wants. And we'll have lots of excuses for boobs and lingerie." Hat's off to the genius.

This starts out pretty entertaining. A look into a girls life in France in the late 40s.

But lo and behold, who would have guessed it: after 20 minutes it turns into the number 1 passion of French men: a Lolita fantasy.

Yes, an insecure grown man who is very supposedly married hooks up with a teenage girl... In fact as we all know from decades of French movies this is yet another French man's wet dream brought to the screen. So was Truffaut no different? Too bad.

The girl in this movie seduces the man and that makes it credible, plausible and "proof" that this is not Pedophilia. Well at least we believe it, won't we?

Unfortunately it is just that: Pedophilia. There are lots of gratuitous scenes of the girl wearing lingerie etc. Of course those scenes had to be there. Otherwise we couldn't possibly have followed this deep and meaningful story... Because you know she just happens to be a kleptomaniac and she just happens to love lingerie. So she has to try on what she steals doesn't she? She could have stolen tractors or food but who wants to see her eating a baguette on a tractor, right? Right.

Later on they check into 2 separate hotel rooms as father and daughter. But grandma concierge knows everything ... she doesn't really approve but hey, this is France, he's 40 and she's 16, no problem!

I guess everything is fine - Charlotte Gainsbourg was SEVENteen at the time. Quite old actually to be in a French movie about defloration.

If you are not convinced by the noble intentions now, there are women's prison scenes and cat fights in the movie as well.

So you see, this is really just an innocent and totally non-sexist totally non-speculative totally non-exploitative look into a young girls life.

Track of the Moon Beast (1976)

Pretty entertaining - if you watch the MSTK3 version

[5/10 · 16 April 2008]

I love these 70s movies! Especially these SciFi B-movies: You never know which awful thing is going to happen next. Awful - that is quality-wise, not horror-wise.

As far as direction is concerned: Frequently in this movie around 4 people line up without really anything special to say - standing side by side not knowing what to do with their arms!

Except for the policeman - he doesn't have that problem because he has super-glued his thumbs to his belt. I was surprised he didn't also drive that way...

The hero is primarily a guy who can't keep his shirt on...

Bad movies show you that there is actually WORK that goes into making a movie look somewhat credible: From the positioning of people to the positioning of their arms - it's a bleeding art form... Movies don't just "happen" on the basis of some idea.

Hey, and the fish-lipped guy with that terrific folk-song. He demonstrates that it's actually TALENT that goes into making a good song. By exhibiting the opposite of that.

The horror and action is reduced to around 30 seconds if you add everything up. But that is not the reason why you watch this. Unless you are 4 years old.

In Living Color (1990–1994)

Let's just say the best skits were really funny

[5/10 · 14 April 2008]

I wanted to like this, and the best sketches in it are really funny and you can watch them over and over again.

But ... unfortunately the humour is mostly very very low-brow and downright toiletary. The best example is the joke they ended the first season on: It's about a "Butthead" family which has buttcheeks on top of their heads. Hilarity ensues... This embarrassingly unimaginative setup is followed by every single butt joke that you can think of yourself.

Poor Tommy Davidson is a funny guy, but his commentary on that last Season 1 episode on the DVD set is a bit on the rosy-coloured glasses side. He calls that Butthead joke setup "risqué" - well, "infantile" would be another word that comes to mind.

I'm not really impressed when you only "push the censors" by using foul language. Politically and socially this show was pretty tame.

Often there is no real joke but just an over-use of one-liners pushed down your throat like "Homey don't play that" etc.

Well, again, there is good stuff in there and there is a huge advantage compared to "Saturday Night Live": the sketches are shorter and to the point.

Schlock (1973)

Well made

[9/10 · 31 March 2008]

So this is a shoe-string budget ($ 60.000) movie... It happens to be a brilliant movie for people who have kept alive the child in themselves.

John Landis has a talent for making comedies.

There are a number of fantastically executed gags in this one.

Very deadpan.

The body language of "Schlock" is absolutely hilarious.

If you're only interested in today's slick, over-produced comedies as well as romantic movies in which Hanks/Stiller/Grant get their girl or if you need CGI, car chases, shootouts and explosions to entertain yourself then stay away from this.

The bottom line and "theory" of this movie is symbolized in all the excerpts from "Blob" with a certain Steve McQueen. Here is a guy who evidently took himself serious and played some tough guys in his days.

YET: Steve McQueen was in "Blob"...

CONCLUSION: Don't take yourself so serious, people. Whether it's comedy or drama or action: it doesn't take 200 mio. dollars to be entertained.

Fire Sale (1977)

Better than 99% of what passes for "comedy" these days

[8/10 · 21 March 2008]

Four stars? - give me a break!

I was thrilled and amused when I saw this as a kid - so many unconventional scenes, so many people who don't behave ...

Alright this is not that entertaining for people of today who have lost any attention span. And it's not as brilliantly made as "Where's Poppa?", also written by Robert Klane, but it does have its moments, i.e. most scenes that Arkin and Gardenia are in. Reiner is pretty inept here as usual, though. Kay Medford is very good as a Mother out of touch with reality. A good cast in general.

Some scenes lack a better execution but on the whole this is an original idea that has several subplots which are nicely tied up. Greed, ineptness, dysfunctional families, madness and irritation manifest themselves in many different ways.

Most locations are pretty "awful" by today's viewing habits but that is the exact charm of this movie as opposed to all the slick and sterile over-produced forgettable comedies of today. The settings make this movie look "real" and might tend to make people uneasy about the story because it seems people don't really get their way - no matter how they try. That makes for good comedy because this is how life is when you constantly overreach: You make a fool of yourself.

The main problem with this seems to be that the ideas are funny but better production and direction would not have hurt. This could very well be remade but I doubt people today want to see anyone on the screen who is over 40 years old... And that is pathetic.

Equilibrium (2002)

And the Oscar for Wooden Actor once again goes to Chris Bale

[2/10 · 9 March 2008]

He should have starred in "The Island" as well. Along with the equally wooden Johanssen and the equally wooden and ripped-off plot.

Sterile movies for thought-and-feeling-sterile people. Awful!

Among all the absurdities in this movie that pistol fence duel at the end is worth mentioning. Surely they didn't come up with this - or could this really be the only original (and might I say ridiculously unrealistic) idea here...?

This is begging to be spoofed. Unfortunately it is too obscure even for "Family Guy".

This black and white bore-fest, particularly the constant shooting scenes look like someone made a spoof of any 10 second clip in the hilariously unrealistic brutality-laden "Team America".

Disco Beaver from Outer Space (1979 TV Movie)

Trash

[2/10 · 3 February 2008]

Why does this piece of film have so many raving reviews?

This is amateurish, unfunny and annoying.

The only memorable thing here is the corny title song.

The production values are low and the "comedic" (if you want to call them that) ideas are weak, they seem like leftovers of leftovers from SNL that even they would not dare to have put on the screen.

I'm beginning to thoroughly mistrust IMDb ratings.

This is light years away from Kentucky Fried Movie - not even in the same Galaxy.

It's not even possible to write 10 lines about it.

OK, another good thing: ugly street scenes and ugly people - something one doesn't get to see a lot in todays TV and Movies.

The Cooler (2003)

Disney goes to Las Vegas

[3/10 · 17 January 2008]

I guess the Mob/Vegas genre is dead as well. Whoever thinks this mess is saved by its actors is delusional. Macy, Baldwin, Bello, Livingston, Warren - over the hill and far away.

The characters are utterly unbelievable and I hope movies about gambling and that city will cease to exist. Soon. Because better movies about this subject have been made long ago.

Waves and waves of clichés and yet this thing has the look and feel of an art-house movie which is pretty annoying.

In a few years this movie will be shown on Sunday afternoons in between "Benji" and "Ali" - i.e. another non-threatening half-entertaining in-the-end-soothing-and-comforting piece of ... Exactly.

Luck be my lady ... My a..!

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Comparisons to Kubrick are a joke - form over substance yet again

[3/10 · 29 December 2007]

Kubrick would have NEVER made a movie like this because it's way too slow, and far too dumb, sappy, tedious and schmaltzy. Having said that, in Hollywood terms, this is quite a risky movie because the essential message is quite unromantic and depressing. For once humans are not portrayed in an ultimately angelic way. When they are gone nothing is really missing. But I doubt Spielberg or his audience would notice that.

Unfortunately Spielberg simply knows no better than putting a thick layer of sugar on everything. The guy can't help himself - he can be the most powerful producer/director and yet he just will not (allow himself to) make any intellectually challenging movies. Maybe he just can't.

The principal mistake in this is all the overbearing simplistic emotion that drowns out anything interesting that could have very easily been said. Rather than just once really concentrating on that very interesting robot-human question the entire movie revolves around this boys affection for his supposed Mother.

In other words: rather than finally producing something in the vein of Stanislaw Lem or Isaac Asimov, millions are spent on yet another version of Pinocchio...

Terry Gilliam should have learnt from this - never do version number 1.393 of some fairy-tale (Quixote, Münchhausen, etc.) but do a thinly-veiled adaptation that fits an existing film cliché, add a kid or a dog and you can hope to cash in.

Every twist and turn is another setup for another disgustingly schmaltzy scene which goes on forever and ever. Which is another difference to Kubrick - his lengths had reasons and were filled with information which you might use for something far out as "thinking" whereas every puny idea here is prolonged ad infinitum & nauseam until you don't care and just want the scene to finally be over.

Rather than witnessing this self-pitying kid for 3 hours I'd have a little more information on those aliens or future beings. But this would have overstrained the authors. They were only only capable of dreadfully clichéd plot devices: Like resurrecting his Mum for a single day only. What, not 48 hours or 72? Alas who cares. It's all ultimately pointless and as long as it amateurishly helps the film to go on and END some time it's OK.

Form over substance - special effects substitute ideas once again. Special effects cretins once again are having a field day with a 1.000 robots. How many of those robots do you have to see until they bore you? I'd say around three.

I'm quite sick of today's SciFi which is really just a lame excuse for soap-opera quality melodrama and fake emotions. "Sunshine", "Bicentennial Man", the list is endless.

In fact this is "Bicentennial Man" - just for a bigger audience because it doesn't feature an eternally 45-year-old but a (very supposedly) cute kid with no discernible eyes and his Teddy Bear.

This had better been a TV movie with the weak mono-dimensional plot (artificial boy wants his mummy) it has. A condensed 30-minute Twilight Zone-type summary would have been more than enough.

It's movies like this that only idiotize people through simplifying, lessening the need to think and cementing the dumbing down of society. But hopefully not before we've come up with a self-designing robot generation that will wipe out our increasing inability to be creative and retain any amount of dignity. At least this movie reinforces this belief of salvation. If we remain smart enough long enough, remains to be seen.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

If you want to speculate on the meaning - go ahead - make your day

[5/10 · 23 December 2007]

This film started nicely enough with soft-focus Hamilton-ish girl-exploitation footage, school-girls waking up to a sunny day, combing their hair and so forth. In fact I firmly expected them to go skinny dipping at some point. There is pan flute music by Gheorghe Zamfir (very hip at the time) and flying budgies inter-cut with many nice looking pictures of the Australian wilderness.

There is almost a Nicholas Roeg feel in the way some scenes are juxtaposed in that "Roegesque" cutting technique – but his "Walkabout" 4 years before on a similar subject is much better.

People wonder about the meaning of this picnic movie – come on, it's sort of a mystery but it's really not worth exploring. It's for people believing in "meanings" of everything that happens. People who believe in the accuracy of the contents of fortune cookies. People who have lots of time.

Basically this seems to be about Europeans lost in an Exotic environment. If you don't agree just go and invest your time into exploring alternative meanings. That is still much better than playing ego-shooter games 20 hours a day and finally acquiring guns over the Intenet.

Peter Weir/d…yet I love the look of these 70s movies, very un-spoilt, almost artistic. No CGI and no 1.300 edits a minute. Very organic.

Masked and Anonymous (2003)

Bob Dylan = The Living God (to some people)

[2/10 · 11 November 2007]

Bob Dylan has figured out one important fact: Sing simplistic songs and shut up. People will think you are a genius. Possibly even a God.

This movie is a dreadful star vehicle for countless pretentious Hollywood people to tag themselves to the Bob Dylan legend (which is born out of thin air). It seems to me all the professional actors in this are a bunch of desperate direction-less people. Most of them by the way appear to be drunk or high on something else. Sad indeed.

Bob is a genius in one single regard - no one has a better grasp on selling himself by NOT doing things.

One of the many, many annoying things in this movie is the tendency to trivialize anything that is not "Bob Dylan music" and to turn the entire World into a prop or stooge for the sheer majesty and brilliance that is "Bob Dylan".

Why, I would suggest to trademark "Bob Dylan" like some lemonade ... but I think it's already happened. In fact Bob is given a chance to comment on Zappa and Hendrix. They are similar enigmas, so why not take them on in the WWF (Who Writes the best .ucking music).

One of the many low points is a black girl singing "Times they are a-changing"... I'm pretty sure this movie was sponsored by some U.N./Unicef/Hollywood conglomerate of detached people living in P.C.-Land.

Just watch the scene where Bob and his band are on stage and he sings one trivial line over and over and a carefully selected crop of people from all around the World including by sheer coincidence Gandhi and The Pope stand in awe watching this holy miracle unfold.

In one other telling scene in this botch the aforementioned Gandhi and The Pope are sitting side by side but wait ... Who is sitting in between? Why, it's Penelope Cruz! I think that is all you need to know about this piece of horse manure.

Of course the movie ends exactly the way it should with Bob rambling about how things don't have to have a meaning etc. etc. etc.

Shampoo (1975)

Big on hair - low on content

[3/10 · 4 November 2007]

I happen to think the 70s were - very generally speaking - the period where commerce and art met at a favourable crossroads only to drift apart in the future.

This movie is one antithesis of this theory but alas... There is definitely a groundswell of (then) controversial, non-PC use of the F-word and supposedly sexual imagery in this film but this overlong work does not really know what it wants or how to get there.

Beatty is a hilariously clichéd big-haired open-shirted chain-clad buffoon Hollywood (?) hairdresser with a tight schedule of doing both rich women's hair and their nether regions.

So this is supposedly about the rich part of L.A. - pity that these people were such cowards that they didn't name names - not even remotely as in a Citizen Kane way. No, the only name mentioned is Nixon but more about that later.

Goldie Hawn is the quasi love interest of our fine shallow fellow. She happens to be in the twilight of her blondie one-trick-pony shtick and she is sporting her knickers under miniskirt dresses at every opportunity. Eventually she finds an even bigger dork than our hairdresser after finally realizing her dream boy is sleeping around with 1.000 other women. Duh...

Our follicle fondling friend needs money for his very own hair salon. So there is a scene in a bank which is almost as hilarious as any Steve Martin/Carl Reiner scene, albeit unintentional I'm afraid.

Nixon? What exactly is the role of politics in this thinly veiled soap opera?! This is a 1975 movie about 1968. Wow - how fantastic to be clever in hindsight. Talk about kicking someone who is down and out. The whole Republican party scenery is completely pointless and does nothing for the movie which is as superficial as its protagonist - the bike-riding brain-free womanizer.

The climax of the movie is an election party which is about as unrealistic and cheesy as an Ed Wood setting - only TWENTY YEARS LATER. Wow.

My conclusion is this: What we have here is 100 soap opera episodes condensed into one feature film with a little dose of quasi-politics and f-words thrown in.

Are Hal Ashby and Warren Beatty French? France has come up with many clever and very interesting movies but also with the Jean-Luc Godard school of film which is to film any amount of nonsensical film segments and give it some meaning afterwards. Example: You literally film anything and call it "revolution". Any modestly equipped brain can make an association with any given imagery and any word.

I love details like that brown-haired stuntman riding his bike around Hollywood. He doesn't look like Beatty. That is funny. Just like the ending which means absolutely nothing. I do like the movie for all the L.A. smog that can be seen every time this soap opera decides to show us more than a few people's petty self-indulgent sex cravings.

The Green Planet (1996)

Hippie Almighty - The mess is the message

[3/10 · 22 October 2007]

This is a very feminine movie. If the evil, vile, yes vicious rule of Man is ever abolished we could be looking at a plethora of movies like this.

The main character is a Woman and she is the only volunteer of her Planet willing to travel to and sanitize and re-educate Earth which is described as the most backward, idiotic, violent Planet in the Universe.

You see, there's this future advanced society of (let's say) hippies on another planet (or time) who don't drive cars, have no TV or money.

"Hippies from Space" - All of them are Caucasian by the way. But don't worry - later on it is revealed that Australian Aborigines are the ultimate sages of Planet Earth. Now if that doesn't convince you of the film's good intentions...

Our female hero comes to Earth via White Bubble (no less) in a garment from the time of the French Revolution and by golly she is repelled by all that horrific meat-eating, air-polluting etc. This is a setting that guarantees some people's instant vomiting:

Hippies from the Future/Cosmos in Paris. A sure-fire blockbuster and next in line to be re-done by Hollywood. Yeah right. "Universal Hippie" (Rated R).

Coline Serreau (of 3 Men and a Baby) wrote, directed AND starred in this movie. If you are frenchophobe and misogynous I strongly suggest you skip this one.

And by the way this happens to reek of eco-fascism in almost every scene. But it is a comedy we must assume - at least the first 30 minutes lead you to believe that. So who knows. In fact it looks like a generic 80s comedy from Europe but it was done in the 90s. Evidently genius transcends the time of mere mortals.

I only have a fuzzy idea of what the "Mastress" of this oeuvre wants but I think: She's criticizing the Modern Age but making fun of the supposed alternatives as well. I hope so because those future hippies are horrific. Almost as dull as the Eloi in Time Machine.

There are memorable, funny scenes in this movie and some that make you cringe. The low point of the movie comes your way during a hospital scene - our hero "re-loads" her energies with the help of a new-born which happens to be the product of a Serb having raped a Bosnian after which she abandoned the child. I have no idea what stuff like this is doing in and for a comedy. It is just one example why it all looks like the essay of a freakishly creative 8-year-old school girl.

Oh, and there is a silent concert here as well, meaning our future genius hippies participate in it telepathically. Can you dig it, man? You see, this is a very esoteric piece we have here. And lurking around every corner there are cathartic collapses and spiritual re-births of bad world-polluting evil-doers.

Incidentally Jesus was, of course, one of those E.T. hippies himself. This is a prequel to "Bruce Almighty" of some sorts. Kind of like "Hippie Almighty". That makes it 3 alternative titles with the word Hippie in this review. I guess we will leave it at that.

This mess of a movie seems to lose its way half-way through. There is a lot of dancing & prancing of people in nature. Skippy hippies on Planet Green. In fact this movie endangers you to believe the French are all women. With or without.

Bummer, I thought "Hippie" was written "Hippy" - what a pity - I imagined those "Hippys" jumping around on their Planet Green like "Skippy" - the credible land-bound Flipper of Australia.

I think it's best to watch this movie drunk or in a feminine state of mind. Of course this is a compliment. So flip your wig and dig it, "Man"?

La Belle Noiseuse (1991)

The Empress actually doesn't wear clothes

[2/10 · 14 October 2007]

Now how more obvious can it be?

This movie … 236 minutes … is classic Emperor's new clothes material. (Classic,because there actually are no clothes…)

I can't believe people are cowards when they are afraid they might be exposed as idiots when they don't understand something that is actually pretentious horse manure.

This movie should have been called Captain Crayon and Lieutenant U-Whora. Just for the fun of it they should have changed roles and she starts drawing his ancient, decrepit body for 3 hours 45 minutes of the 4 hours. Or miss an arm. Or turning out to be a hermaphrodite 2 hours into the movie. Just to annoy the voyeurs. THEN I would believe the "Arts" argument.

This is no better than "Showgirls" or that "Striptease". Just something for people too ashamed to buy porn.

Let's summarize the plot of this - an annoying stuttering, mumbling painter (played by Michel Piccoli, who has seen better days in his acting career) discovers through the help of a young naked lady that he DOES want to draw naked women after being turned off having to use his (obviously jealous) wife for too long. Duh! No: Double-Duh! Bottom Line of this Movie: "Don't paint your wife" (Spoiler alert) – it took them 4 HOURS for that …? Eeuww…what a gross piece of self importance.

So this is a movie about "the artistic process"? Gee-whizz that it should include a naked woman.

Michel Piccoli - I find him quite nauseating lately - the way he mumbles incomprehensibly when he's stuttering around. What a typical pseudo-artistic french Nincompoopeur, I'm sorry Mitch! Mitch Piccoli – I bet there's a French version of Baywatch about to break on the T.V. scene with him and his grey chest hair wobbling up the French Riviera somewhere. "Protecting French sun-bathers from U.S. literature with paperback French existentialist essential reading. "

As for Beart's new look – wasn't she even in some commercial? … just a minute … yes, it was an H&M advert where she runs around lingerie-clad in an apartment seducing an invisible stalker. Great message …

On the often heard argument on sexiness: "why can't she dress and be sexy if she wants to?" Because you can't have everything. It just doesn't work: A small fraction of women come across sexy AND smart because backing up the "smart part" is oh so difficult. And "sexy" is associated with "slut" – that's how it is, and there is a reason for that. Once again: "denial". (#1 illness of today).

In fact: A French woman with silicone implants – how decadent is that. Or did she only get her implants after she found a French translation for "Silicone Implants"? I'd bet my Bentley, Ocean Dreamhouse and Silicone Shaped Dream-Wife on that fact.

Now if the French women also start shaving their armpits (which Americans will never believe) we might be getting somewhere. (Eternal Damnation and such)

Once again: I'm speechless about the chuzpe/irony of a French actress being shallow like a Hollywood bimbo by inflating her body parts and STILL expecting to have some artistic French quality about her…

Unfortunately it takes some actresses DECADES to bed enough important people to get any decent roles and then they need surgery. Life is so unfair, you know.

This movie is a good example for the French's predilection for pouting Lolitas. Pervs…

One reviewer here professed that he fell asleep. Another said her body wasn't perfect – maybe she read it and got her appointment at the surgeon immediately.

Someone said the movie is a "foot-wiggler" – right, either because of boredom or the suppressed sexual thoughts when seeing a woman wriggle around naked – which is absolutely cool & probably the only true quality of this sorry effort.

Full Moon High (1981)

Dreadful amateurish pseudo-spoof

[2/10 · 14 October 2007]

Being a fan of movies like "Fire Sale", "Where's Poppa", "Airplane" I saw this because it was mentioned favorably in the context of real comedies and satires like the aforementioned. Well, WRONG CONCLUSION!

Not only is this not funny, it makes you angry because it isn't bad in a schlocky, likable way but in a really bad way. It's bad-bad. The script does not contain a single funny line which is rather in the way when you're trying to entertain your audience with humour.

Adam Arkin's speech impediment is probably the single most annoying thing in this movie. Still this cruelty of nature doesn't prevent him from being smug throughout the movie and he has a hard time not looking into the camera. This amateur without charisma fits in nicely with the constant continuity errors and bumbling along of the story - if you can find one.

Ed McMahon - I had to think of Jay Leno, another late night talk show person, who always refuses to call himself an actor. Well, I've seen a few Leno movies and he's Laurence Olivier compared to McMahon.

Kenneth Mars is good, though. In the few lines that he's given. I'm not easily frightened by bad comedies so I kept watching and looking for all the quasi-jokes every 5 minutes or so.

The movie actually becomes sort of a comedy as soon as Alan Arkin takes over - he literally does: Starting 75 minutes into the movie he's in every scene. But it's too little, too late.

When movies try to fool you into believing their lack of professionalism is the reason you're supposed to like them because they have the right intentions they remind me of pupils that haven't prepared for an exam. In those cases you have to remain strict and the grade has to be an 'F'. (But please don't assume I'm a teacher. That is a profession with a respectability somewhere between politician and child molester).

If you actually look for a likable schlocky horror/scifi movie that is fun to watch and does contain jokes try "Man with the Screaming Brain" by Bruce Campbell. Or watch Sunshine/Core if you prefer modern loud shallow SciFi Schlock. Those are equally funny, albeit involuntarily.

The Core (2003)

A prequel to the equally hilarious "Sunshine"

[2/10 · 10 October 2007]

I'm so glad I finally had the chance to see the movie that is supposedly like "Sunshine" and that was mentioned sardonically in all the rightful thrashings it received.

Wow, this has so much stuff to laugh at. It's a fantastic comedy. Those twirling pigeons on Trafalgar Square alone were a riot! High precision was involved in those pigeons aiming for all the available windows. Wave after wave of aimlessly attacking (...) birds. Notice how all the cars and buses were going at full speed just so they could spectacularly crash in flames. Exploding things, crying kids, this scene has it all. The pigeon intermezzo was almost as funny as Mel Brooks' spoof of Hitchcocks Birds in his own "High Anxiety".

That "rocket train" shooting through the ocean, through the Earth's crust and heck even to the Earth's core is phantasmagorically incredulous. It takes guts to come up with stuff like this (or lack of coherent thinking). My personal favourites were all the lighting down there which makes everything so beautifully visible (phew - we'd have a dark movie otherwise) and those mountain-sized diamonds...

Awww...and those whales escorting the ship and finally saving everybody...too sweet.

I loved the coincidence that this American ship just happened to shoot out of bottom of the Ocean next to Hawaii. So close to home. And yeah, who knew it, right next to some red-white-and-blue aircraft carriers.

Of all the crew I'd like to especially mention Hillary Swank - she surely picks her roles. What can I say - her face is 50% teeth. The woman is so un-human-like, she looks like a robot. Plus: does she have an iris? Her eyes are all black it seems - like a cartoon figure. Just huge pupils - like a newborn bird with a big mouth and huge eyes, screaming to be fed. Just would like to mention that.

The exclamation point of the movie of course was this final preposterous hacker's attack: I love it when brain-free entertainment tries to be clever and P.C. as well.

The Questor Tapes (1974 TV Movie)

SciFi babble for children

[2/10 · 24 September 2007]

The only reason this pseudo-scientific effort has nothing but positive reviews and almost 7 points (so far...) is that no one seems to bother to (re)view this low-brow attempt at Science Fiction.

It's typical Roddenberry - he rehashes a mishmash of seemingly scientific ideas by bringing it all down to the level of an illiterate audience or an audience of kids. Alright, there may be a huge market for brainfree entertainment but it just doesn't deserve the rating it is getting here. It would if this was a forum for Trekkies, people believing in Ufos etc.

But this is a site where Monty Python movies get (only) around 8 stars but mentioning them would be like comparing apples (Python) and trash (this). The only question this mess leaves unanswered is: why even review it? I guess some things have to be done in defense of better movies.

I'd just like to point out Foxworth's portrayal of a "robot": It's dreadful.

Barbershop (2002)

Uninvolving rehash of other movies

[2/10 · 15 September 2007]

Not every movie can be entirely original. But it's annoying to see obvious rip-offs from other movies combined with a lack of talent for story-telling (or in this case scene-telling). Obvious references which are simply taken and copied only with much lesser intelligence are: Coming to America, Big Lebowski, Do The Right Thing, Carwash, etc.

For instance the car smashing scene: It isn't even done well, the guy takes forever to notice that his car is being smashed, then he runs out on the street and there isn't a single funny line. The scene is straight out of Big Lebowski (a movie I didn't like and found less original than almost everyone else but at least there was some craft involved in the making of that particular movie).

And this happens all the time: people talk and do the most obvious things. No twists, no clever dialogue, just a shallow and flat deliverance. It sometimes even feels as if there was no script at all. People seem to have a general idea of a scene then just went along to see if anything (funny) would happen.

It's all good and fine to try to capture alleged everyday life but this requires a skill. The "jokes" throughout the movie have Police Academy quality. i.e. they are primitive, slap-sticky and have been seen a million times. Fat guys are just fat and that is supposedly funny enough. For them to quote and make fun of Rosa Parks, MLK has absolutely no reason or twist or whatever. At one point in the movie guys talk about being entitled to reparation payments like Jews for the Holocaust. It's mystifying what all these touchy subjects that appear out of nowhere in the movie are supposed to be doing for a film that seems to want to be a light-hearted snap-shot of some inner city neighbourhood.

It seems someone just wanted to cram every possible subject into a setting without rounding if off in any way thinking you can just loosely tie together scenes and ideas (from others), then mix in a few controversial subjects and voilà: Here's your masterpiece. Well: it didn't work.

Entropy (I) (1999)

My my, are we clever with our involving Zeitgeist piece about our own boring lives

[2/10 · 6 August 2007]

What a disjointed, contrived mess this is. So I'll style my review after the movie:

This guy talking to the camera all the time. I don't like being pandered to. This movie is like someone who did something bad to you (i.e. the movie) but he keeps talking and being in your face to you trying to convince you to like his movie and not to hit him.

How many clichéd personas exactly are in this movie? It even has a Soprano type guy, a European girl who shows her mammaries, et cetera.

Amateurish Acting (AA) - I love failed movies like this for the use of unknown actors you are glad never to see in any other movie again. Oh but let me put a word in about Lauren Holly - uh...not good.

The plot is irrelevant. It's probably a sort of autobiography anyway. The "hero" has directed U2 in the past - surprisingly the director has directed U2's "Rattle and Hum". Wow...

And lastly the title: "Entropy" - I don't care about why it was decided to use that title but it surely makes the target viewers (US college students) go back and check the meaning of the word they have decided to ignore in one of last year's classes. Heck - I'll go out on a limb and speculate that the true meaning of the title is this: A mess that keeps getting more and more of a mess.

An alternative way of being entertained would be reading the wishy-washy entry of entropy on Wikipedia. Enjoy and be "sillyfied".