Change Your Image
canthony
Reviews
Battlefield Earth (2000)
What is wrong with all you people?
I just saw this movie last night. I didn't really want to - I don't like Travolta's bad guys and I believed the popular opinion. I just flipped it on to burn one of the commercial breaks in my other program. But very quickly, I had abandoned the other show and stuck with Battlefield Earth. Now I'm not going to claim that this movie is a classic or a work of art, but come on, it was not that bad. It was at least average. Yet I see people blindly declaring it to be the worst movie ever made. I have seen several big budget movies just within the last week which were far far worse, including 28 Days and Lost Souls. Godzilla, now there was a bad movie, and it is sitting there with twice the rating of this one. This movie was perfectly decent, rather entertaining, and even a little inventive. All that one can figure is that you are all sheep, jumping on the bandwagon simply because it is popular to dislike this movie.
Stalin (1992)
This movie made me love HBO for years
I freakin love this movie. I don't even really know why. Probably a combination of factors. First of all, this was the first movie I ever saw Robert Duvall in, and he does an exceptional job as he has done in every role he has ever had. Also, it gave me a decent historical picture of Stalin which led to years of fascination with the man. It was also one of HBO's first in a long string of award winning historical fiction TV movies, and still my personal favorite. If you like Robert Duvall and great dialogue, I highly recommend it.
Every Sunday (1936)
Yikes
People claim that movie making has gone downhill, but they forget that hollywood was far more commercial in its early days. Along with a force of simple movies put out each year to keep the theaters full, viewers were provided with eye candy in the form of pointless shorts. This musical short, made only to showcase the singing talents of Judy Garland and the operatic voice of Deanna Durbin, has no actual plot, and consists only of about 20 minutes of the pair singing the same song, "Americana". Although we all have seen Garland's talents in the Wizard of Oz, the arrangement of this repetitive song makes her sound very normal, and it is difficult to comprehend opera singing coming from a child. All in all, I shouldn't have expected much, but they could have chosen a better song and arrangement if they simply wished to provide a pleasant musical experience.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
The Pointless Horseman
I am always shocked when I see the extents to which people have gone to praise a movie which just wasn't that good. To these people I have to ask, what on earth are you talking about? No, Sleepy Hollow was not unbearable or terrible. It was simply uninteresting. And that in itself is shocking. How can you make a movie about a demon with no head who chases people down on a black horse and chops of their heads uninteresting? It would have seemed impossible before SH, but Burton pulled off a miracle. The movie bogs itself down with plot and attempts to add a conspiracy element which simply does not work. I agree with a previous reviewer that the movie should simply have focus on the horseman himself - but instead by the end of this movie we think of the horseman more like a robot or mindless animal - not the truly evil being he could be. I think the feel of the initial scene was successfully creepy, but few other instances in the movie succeeded in raising any fright. I think Johnny Depp went about as far with the role as he could, but I was underwhelmed with Christina Ricci. I also expected to see more of Walken, but I suppose since his character starts out the movie dead, you can't expect too much. All in all, not Tim Burton's best work, and probably the worst of the last four movies I have seen (Dogma, Being John Malkovich, Fight Club, The World Is Not Enough).
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Worst Dialogue Ever
Look, I see people making good comments about this movie, but I'm sorry, it is impossible the get past the worst dialogue ever in a movie. I look back, trying to remember the good parts of the film, but all I hear is the worst Bond one-liners ever coupled with some of the worst dramatic lines ever as well (What was it. . . did I get too close? Did I get too close. . . for comfort?) Now, I'm sure some people will say, hey, Bond is supposed to have cheesy dialogue and one liners. This is true. But this movie was hundreds of times worse than the other bonds. I just saw The World is Not Enough last night and the one-liners were not at all annoying in that movie, nor was the overall feel of the movie anywhere near as cheesy. And by the way, although I think he is a great actor, Jonathan Pryce sucked as the bad guy. Definitely the worst of the Brosnan bonds.
Payback (1999)
A depraved film
A lot of people have complained that Mel Gibson was a poor casting choice for this role. I actually think he was just right for the part, it's that no one wants to see good ol Mel portrayed this way. The real problem is, _no_ one should have played this part. Porter was bad. Real bad. Far, far worse than any of the people whom he killed, tortured, or simply put through hell. The drug courier, for example. Hey, delivers drugs, and he might have some useful information, so lets beat the crap out of him and rip out his nosering. Some of the other "bad guys" were more corrupt, but a couple never gave any signs of threatening Porter. But they didn't have his money, so *Bang*. I also think someone else had a good observation when they pointed out that there were _no_ bystanders anywhere in the movie. I myself noticed when he blew the car up that this seemed a bit too visible. But heck, who notices cars blowing up with the obvious perpetrator standing right next to them these days? Realism was a bit out the window, and unfortunately, so was humanity. A fairly well done movie that shouldn't have been made, nonetheless.
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Surreal, but not enlightening.
It is often difficult when leaving a movie this weird to tell exactly what you thought of it. I was pretty sure with this one that I liked it, but I had to think a while what made the movie so clever. After some consideration, I do not agree that this movie really raises any philosophical questions or provides a new perspective on identity or such things. Any points where a difficult conceptual situation arises is dealt with more by humor than with wisdom. But like Brazil and even the Fifth Element, its genius lies directly in its weirdness, and how it simply attacks the stability of one's preconceptions and beliefs in general. After a movie like this, life just doesn't seem so simple any more, so closely bound by rules. And this movie, I think, does it better than any other. Outrageous plot aside, every character, down to their reactions to each event, is so wholly absurd that it is just too much insanity to process all at once. But in the end, after a slight change in one's mindset (and perhaps a slight loss of sanity), the nonsense does seem to make quite a bit of sense. It is impressive that a movie so bizarre could still be so coherently put together. Many surreal movies, such as some Kubrick and the aforementioned Brazil kind of leave you completely lost at the end, but this one doesn't leave many holes. I think that just about anyone will leave the movie feeling odd but with no regrets. As a side note, the acting in all cases is also superb. For each main actor, it is probably their best performances. As I said, the characters are so odd, it must have been quite a task to make them seem at all real. As another side note, the puppeteering is amazing. If you can do such things with puppets, then I would certainly care to be exposed to more of it.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
An alternate movie
I often find myself wondering if I have really gone to see the same movie as the other reviewers. Sometimes it is almost impossible to even attempt to identify with their take. I have seen Episode I twice now and I am fairly apathetic about it. I don't have any intentions of seeing it again - in fact, I don't think I could sit through it. Yet one of the reviews I read said that there was a full minute of applause when the movie ended. I don't believe one clap came up in the theatre I was in . Among me and my fellow viewers there seemed to be a general disinterest in the film. However, I am not saying the movie was bad. If it were unrelated to the Star Wars series, I am sure I would have loved it. But this movie truly hurt the series. Lucas put in parts which twist the trilogy plot in ways which cannot be repaired. Jar-Jar can be forgotten (which I am trying to do quickly) but we cannot forget the introduction of "mitochloridons" or whatever they were. This adds a useless scientific aspect to the force which merely muddies the plot. We also cannot simply forget the fact that Anakin was made a to be a little too similar to Jesus (a saviour with no father...hmm). These are continuing elements added to the storyline which will carry through the next two movies and even effect our view of the original 3. Combined with the fact that many critical situations were resolved by slapstick accidents and that Jar-Jar was more annoying than C3P0 could ever aspire to be, this movie is mere filler compared to the first three. If you remove the special effects, I think we would find very little left.
On a side note, I thought the Jedi were very well done and entertaining.
Wishmaster (1997)
Laughable...
I think I should point out that the reason I became a registered user was just to badmouth this movie. I read the sparkling review of the user before me and had to set the record straight- this movie is terrible. My friends and I laughed throughout the whole thing on the big screen, and we laugh at it every time it comes on television. We use it as our standard bad movie (That movie was bad, but it was no Wishmaster). This is the sort of movie that keeps you thinking that they must have intended it to be bad - this couldn't just be some sort of horrible mistake. Maybe I give it such a bad rap because they started with a pretty good premise and I went in with rather high expectations. All things said and done, this movie was about as bad as it could be given what they had to work with. This and New Nightmare certainly haven't helped Wes' stock.
The Lion King (1994)
I am so tired of this movie.
I wasn't going to comment on this one, but I was inspired by the review before me. This person along with thousands of others obviously have seen a different "The Lion King" than me because the one I saw was mediocre at best. Although I still give it a five, I think that it is unquestionably the worst Disney epic ever. I find the music to be extremely forgettable, if not downright irritating at some points, and the plotline erratic. And don't get me started about the nonexistent love story which we are supposed to buy. This movie also breaks several Disney rules which I have come to expect, like the mysterious singing from the heavens (almost all Disney epics have all the music sung by actual characters). To make a long rant short, I disliked this enough that I have not seen a Disney cartoon since.