'Rediculous' Customer & Critic Reviews

[MichaelB]

IMDB review for Nostalghia by fedor8

Tarkovsky portrays Italy as a gloomy, dark, depressing place. I have no idea why.

And yet another so-called critic misses the entire point of the film. And in this case, even the title should have provided a faint clue.

[Cold Bishop]

I especially like his pointing out of the merits:

Besides some nicely photographed scenes, there was a pleasant scene where the blonde actress bares one of her breasts.

My, what scholarly professionalism...

[domino harvey]

I especially like his pointing out of the merits:

Besides some nicely photographed scenes, there was a pleasant scene where the blonde actress bares one of her breasts.

My, what scholarly professionalism...

more like masturb8 amirite

[MichaelB]

It's ages since I last saw the film - but I don't recall there being anything even remotely erotic (or pleasant, given the context) about the breast-baring scene. Wasn't the act in question performed in anger rather than enticement?

[Matt]

Wasn't the act in question performed in anger rather than enticement?

Tits are tits, to some apparently.

[domino harvey]

Anyone else thinking of the cringe-inducing Straw Dogs discussion from the .com forum?

[Napoleon]

Solaris By Film Fanatic "Adam" (United Kingdom)

The story had a lot of potential. I really thought this was going to be a good thriller that played with your mind and had you guessing to the end, jumping off your seat, hiding behind the sofa. But instead it was slow, dull and really, really boring.
Firstly it was hard to hear because the amount of characters that kept whispering. It was really hard to understand and the storyline was confusing enough without characters speaking in a low whisper.
Secondly the characters were so boring. Not one of them had a bit of enthusiasm in their voice. It just made the film even more boring then it already was.
Thirdly, what were the flashbacks all about? They made no sense. It kept going from the past to the the present and the flashbacks had no meaning. They weren't helping the storyline at all.
And last of all, George Clooney didn't do the character justice at all. I think the only reason he was picked were to show off his body in the nudity scenes. He was just as dull and boring as the other characters.
So please, take my advice. This isn't a love story, this isn't a sci-fi film, this isn't a big hollywood blockbuster. It's just a waste of time and money and isn't even worth a look at. Very dissapointing.

I've highlighted the really stupid bits because I'm mean.

[colinr0380]

Wow, I read that thinking it was another attack on how terrible the 70s Solaris was compared to the remake until Clooney and his bottom was mentioned! I can't wait to hear what he has to say about the Tarkovsky!

[domino harvey]

I'm not sure where to put this, so why not here. From the front page of Yahoo:

[Cold Bishop]

Want something really rediculous... watch the trailer.

the hell?

[quote="Armond White"]But Perry dares—and wins—as an artist mindful of an audience whose problems and wishes are underserved. Married? isn't an Oprah sermon; much of its humor and punch comes from Perry's expose of domestic secrets. This happens to be the basis of R. Kelly's extraordinary music-video opera, Trapped in the Closet—a work of true genius that the media has also underrated and ridiculed. The media mocks R. Kelly's vernacular (calling it “crazyâ€

[domino harvey]

Trapped in the Closet is brilliant, but Tyler Perry is nowhere near self-aware enough to be adequately compared.

[Cold Bishop]

The hell?

Trapped in the Closet is brilliant, but Tyler Perry is nowhere near self-aware enough to be adequately compared.

[tavernier]

We could make a "Rediculous Armond White review" thread quite easily.

[colinr0380]

"Oh my god, a midget midget midget!"

I'm tempted to say it became a comedy classic if only for that line and for when Rosy the nosy neighbour turned up with a spatula in her hand ("Like it's gonna do something 'gainst that gun").

On looking at the imdb reviews for Abigail's Party recently I came across this classic by "Flea Man" which must have been written with tongue firmly in cheek! - or with a half-empty bottle next to the computer:

This is one of the worst films I ever saw, I can only compare it to a trip the dentist out of Little Shop of Horrors, followed by a quick shower in American History X, and finished off with a party in the cabin from Evil Dead. In short this unique film did everything in it's power to try and make me kill myself. It was tempting to end the pain as soon as possible but the person making me watch it assured me it didn't last too much longer. It was a family member making me endure the true nightmare that is Abigail's Party, if not related I would have cut this person out of my life completely for assaulting should with such awful viewing. When drunk I once got locked in a boiler-room where I was hiding for 16 hours and I would do that every day for a year if someone could give me back the time I spent watching this film. In short avoid it people, however if you have been un-lucky enough to view this monstrosity then the government has set up group counselling sessions. these are very helpful and have stemmed the murderous rage I felt at first. You can find details about these groups from you nearest citizen's advice bureau

[miless]

That's a pretty great review. I have not seen the movie, but I did see a stage production of it in NYC featuring Jennifer Jason Leigh (She almost ruined the whole thing for me... seeming as she had THE WORST/MOST ANNOYING British accent I've ever heard).

Luckily, however, I was able to forget about that when Mike Leigh came out after the show for a Q&A session (with the director and the cast, too).

[MichaelB]

That's a pretty great review. I have not seen the movie, but I did see a stage production of it in NYC featuring Jennifer Jason Leigh (She almost ruined the whole thing for me... seeming as she had THE WORST/MOST ANNOYING British accent I've ever heard).

Bear in mind that her character, Beverley, is supposed to be tooth-grindingly annoying. I haven't seen that incarnation, but here's a YouTube clip of Alison Steadman as the original.

Incidentally, the Mike Leigh version isn't "a movie" as such - it's a low-budget BBC studio adaptation of his stage play (with, I believe, most or all of the same cast) that was originally only supposed to be shown once, but it had such a huge impact (helped by artificially inflated audiences due to a power failure knocking out the main rival ITV channel) that it ended up being repeated umpteen times, released on video and DVD, and even the subject of an entire evening's programming to mark its 20th anniversary.

[Cold Bishop]

Now this is just bizarre... from the original NY release of Diary of A Country Priest

SOMETIMES it helps a little to be able to understand the motivations and maneuverings of the characters in a film. A few simple clues to their behavior do aid one to grasp what's going on. But these rather modest assistances are not provided—to this reviewer, at least—by the contents of Robert Bresson's "Diary of a Country Priest," the French film that opened yesterday at the refurbished Fifth Avenue Cinema, formerly the Fifth Avenue Playhouse, down near Washington Square.

Despite the extraordinary closeness one has to the hero of this film—and M. Bresson gets his camera so close that you can study every bump on the young priest's sad face, every quiver and droop of his sick body, every gesture of his expressive hands, as he fumblingly tries to be a pastor to the people of a village parish in France—the scope of the personal relations and inner conflicts that agonize this man and hasten his death (of cancer) remains elusive and obscure.

What is the deep and dark misgiving that seems to be eating on him as he takes up his clerical duties in a curiously churlish little town? Why do the children torment him—especially one little girl, whose peculiarly sadistic taunting is never made reasonably clear? And what is this complicated business of a slyly adulterous Count, his neurotic wife and their strange daughter, who seems to have some complex toward the priest?

Don't ask us. We followed the picture as closely as we could, ears open and eyes darting diligently over the English subtitles for the dialogue. And still we could not catch the pattern of the poor young priest's misery nor penetrate the veil of mysticism that strangely enshrouds the whole film.

This may not be blamed on M. Bresson. The late George Bernanos, who wrote the original story, which is the basis for the film, was one of those French Catholic authors whose concern was the abstract regions of the soul. And it is into these difficult regions that M. Bresson obviously has attempted to have his camera delve.

His cinema technique is brilliant. Reflective of the work of Carl Dreyer, the old Danish master of the close-up and the hard, analytical camera style, it is a compound of searching realism and a tempo of movement that approaches poetry. Thanks to fine photography and authentic backgrounds, this is a pictorially beautiful film.

And the performances are gauntly impressive. Claude Laydu as the tortured young priest gives such a sense of general suffering that he is literally painful to watch. Madame Arkell as the embittered Countess is a credible sufferer, too. One long scene between these two characters, in which they talk out the tangles in their souls, is so mentally and physically agonizing that one feels exhausted when it's done. You may not know what has been accomplished, but you know you have been through an ordeal.

Others who play their parts fitly are André Guibert as an old priest, Jean Riveyre as the Count, Nicole Maurey as his paramour and Nicole Ladmiral as the daughter of the Count.

Perhaps those more closely familiar with the states of grace discussed in this film will be more alert to its meanings. This reviewer was completely confused.

Also on the program is a delightful UPA cartoon that tells the moralistic story of "The Fifty-first Dragon," by the late Heywood Broun. A trenchant fable, done in sketches that have an amusingly satiric style, for all the economy in their drawing, it makes a point about catch-phrases and empty words.

[Jeff]

Now this is just bizarre... from the original NY release of Diary of A Country Priest

One could create an entire thread like this just for the reviews of the acutely out-of-touch Bosley Crowther. Thanks to the newfound generosity of The New York Times, here is the famously off-base Bonnie and Clyde review that ostensibly ended his long career.

[Cold Bishop]

But I'm not just talking about Crowther's taste (although the juxtaposition of the two films in the review is certainly part of it)... Bresson coupled with an UPA cartoon is just utterly bizarre to me.

[Napoleon]

From Amazon UK for Juliet of the Spirits

I don't know what it is about classic Italian film-makers, but they only seem able to make one classic film each: De Sica's The Bicycle Thieves; Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers; and Rossellini's Rome Open City, to name just three. Fellini is a case in point. La Dolce Vita is a truly beautiful and stylish film, but everything else he has done has left me cold, and that includes the hopelessly over-rated 8 ½.

Juliet of the Spirits is about a woman, played by Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, who is on the brink of being abandoned by her husband. Her life is empty outside of being the wife of her husband, so the effect on her is traumatic and she experiences a slow mental breakdown.

Material like this would be grist to the mill for a director with subtlety and flair, and while Fellini is no slouch in providing flair, subtetly escapes him completely. He shows her breakdown through flashbacks to her childhood, which are done quite well, and visions, which are handled with all the kack-handedness of a reluctant primary school teacher who has been ordered by the headmaster to direct the school Nativity play. A good example of this is when she imagines a group of nuns swarming into her room like a flock of geese. (Don't ask me what this is suppose to represent. Catholic guilt, maybe? Who knows?) The scene should have a nightmarish quality about it, creepy and unnerving. Instead, it looks like what it is - a cast of extras marching on to the set on cue. Fellini fails to convince that we are witnessing a mental breakdown through the eyes of the victim. What we really experience is Fellini's inability to understand the potential of cinema. I know this is probably sacrilege in some circles, but that is what I thought as I watched this. Giulietta Masina carries off her part with a quiet dignity, but even she cannot save this film. Everyone who hates art house movies probably thinks they are all like this. Sadly, some are.

To be honest I didn't read on after the first paragraph, but damn those Italian directors and their one classic film syndrome.

[Magic Hate Ball]

On this edition of I AM ANGRY (yellow), we delve into 8 1/2...

This film, shot on a video camcorder of some sort, is a testament to the prowess of stupidity. you'll be lucky to find it in your local store, and i believe it received extremely limited distribution. That it got produced in the first place is a small miracle. though i consider myself a fan of the psychotronic b-movie genre, this film goes wrong in the wrong places. Sure, the acting is bad, the plot confounded, the editing nonexistent. But if i wanted to see a film this bad, I'd go watch all the stupid videos I recorded with my friends in elementary school. Eight and a half is about 2 hours and 18 minutes of just that.

Stupid Italians and their 1960's camcorders.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

8 1/2 Didn't have enough titties.

Or blood.

[tavernier]

Or colors.

[chaddoli]

While this person is clearly retarded, it seems like he probably watched the film on a shitty VHS, which can really turn people off to older films. I didn't get 8 1/2 until it came out on dvd when I was about 15.

[toiletduck!]

Bill Gibron, move over... there's a new guy in town.

There's a fella over at DVD Talk by the name of Nick Lyons who is the charming picture of ineptitude. It was okay (annoying, but okay) when they stuck him with Z-grade horror, but apparently he's moving up in the ranks. Here's his latest, on Severance.

For the lazy among you, here's the first paragraph:

After "Shaun Of The Dead" successfully blended horror and comedy, it was obvious filmmakers were going to cash in by trying to create their own "Shaun." The latest imitator ("Severance") has a promising premise, but the story's tone is all over the place.

I haven't seen Severance, and it very well may suck, but if so, it's not because it's aping this groundbreaking new "horror-comedy" genre that Shaun of the Dead unleashed on the world. The only reason I can even see for the comparison is that they're both British, and Lyons doesn't mention that fact once.

And in typical Lyons closing fashion, the "My God, I know a lot of horror movies, don't I?" random, egregious, and much less obscure than he imagines cross-film reference:

Looking at the extra features, [the cast] all seemed to have a better time together when they weren't acting. It's kind of sad, but I felt there was better chemistry between the office workers going paintballing in the short scene in "Friday The 13th Part 6: Jason Lives."

Jesus Christ, Jason Lives? What an obscure reference! I didn't think anyone had seen that film! If only it hadn't come along before the inception of horror-comedy, perhaps we'd all be hearkening back to short scenes. The world just wasn't ready...

-Toilet Dcuk