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Alex da Silva at Amazon on Prix de Beaute wrote: The cast are alright bearing in mind that it is a silent film. The best part of the film comes at the end but the story goes on a little too long. After watching this, I'm not really sure what the big deal was over the looks of Louise Brooks - she has a terrible haircut that makes her face look fat. I don't need to watch it again.

I might not be giving this book the best review but I still liked it. Having said that a lot of this book may be lost of the average reader, unless of course you have a more-than-average vocabulary, I do and even I, at times, got a little stuck in unnesisarily obscure words.

Zazou dans le Metro wrote:This tickled my fancy not so much that it is ridiculous but how he shoots himself in the foot. It is a review of Paul Durcan's collection of poems, And it is, as they say 'Sic'

I might not be giving this book the best review but I still liked it. Having said that a lot of this book may be lost of the average reader, unless of course you have a more-than-average vocabulary, I do and even I, at times, got a little stuck in unnesisarily obscure words.

Michael Brennan wrote:How anyone can recommend this as worth watching is beyond me - it is an abomination. I can't comment on the blu ray but I can't believe a black and white originally scratchy film with monaural soundtrack from the 1960s is going to look stunning on 1080p given the awful source material.

The film itself is an abomination - a group of pretentious aristocratic french wandering round a dimly lit hotel in the middle of winter asking other guests " Were you here last year in Marienbad " ( the only line of dialogue for almost 2 hours ) - as tedious and painful as pulling a tooth that is rooted deeply in the gums and refuses to budge.

Like many truly awful films of its genre, the totally clueless director leading the vacant actors about, chooses to disguise and market the film as "existentialist" - meaning that many pseudo intellectual snobs are critics are terrified of criticising it for the rubbish it really is for fear of being labelled non-intellectuals who don't understand . A little like "The Emperor's New Clothes" in terms of denial.

The type of film you would watch in a student art house on a Monday afternoon between lectures sat next to 10 geeks in woolly jumpers and black framed glasses capable of sending you to sleep within 5 minutes of their endless rants about Sartre, Kant and Rousseau.

I have always been puzzled by the hostile reaction of critics to Billy Jack. The puzzling aspect is not the negativity itself, but rather the almost blanket misrepresentation or - to be charitable - misunderstanding, of what the movie is about.

Thus potential buyers are disserviced by the prevailing conventional wisdom i.e. "Billy Jack preaches peace while practising violence"; "Billy Jack wants to have its cake and eat it with regard to pacifism"; "the film is hypocritical" etc.

To critics safely weaned on the quiet, unthreatening dignity of Sidney Poitier, the Billy Jack character threatened equivalent response to oppression that cared neither for the approval, feelings or physical well-being of knowing oppressors. Revolutionary indeed!

For while Billy is clear in cause and action, the movie is purposefully less so.

Should Billy be praised, condemned or something in-between? The movie honestly doesn't know and sensibly leaves this to the viewer to decide.

Billy Jack was a movie phenomenon in the 1970s, as we attended secret underground viewings with our parents - one eye on the lookout for security police raids.

Billy Jack may seem naive now

Forget the sour mumblings of mainstream critics (the same people who proclaimed True Lies "a quality movie")

As an action movie with some things on its mind other than fast cars, big explosions and blonde babes

In any case, the title song ("One Tin Soldier") by Coven is in and of itself worth the unbelievable DVD purchase price.

Billy Jack remains one of the best examples of independent movie-making at its most threatening to the Establishment.

I had been looking for copies of Billy Jack and Born Losers (the original Billy Jack movie) for almost 15 years before discovering it for sale on this site.

Since receiving my shipment, I have watched them repeatedly and not been disappointed. Neither will you.

Who could forget the day Gene Siskel fell to his knees and wept blood as he was overcome with joy watching True Lies and knew he had seen the face of God captured on celluloid.

Napoleon wrote:This is a cracker.

Michael Brennan wrote:How anyone can recommend this as worth watching is beyond me - it is an abomination. I can't comment on the blu ray but I can't believe a black and white originally scratchy film with monaural soundtrack from the 1960s is going to look stunning on 1080p given the awful source material.

The film itself is an abomination - a group of pretentious aristocratic french wandering round a dimly lit hotel in the middle of winter asking other guests " Were you here last year in Marienbad " ( the only line of dialogue for almost 2 hours ) - as tedious and painful as pulling a tooth that is rooted deeply in the gums and refuses to budge.

Like many truly awful films of its genre, the totally clueless director leading the vacant actors about, chooses to disguise and market the film as "existentialist" - meaning that many pseudo intellectual snobs are critics are terrified of criticising it for the rubbish it really is for fear of being labelled non-intellectuals who don't understand .A little like "The Emperor's New Clothes" in terms of denial.

The type of film you would watch in a student art house on a Monday afternoon between lectures sat next to 10 geeks in woolly jumpers and black framed glasses capable of sending you to sleep within 5 minutes of their endless rants about Sartre, Kant and Rousseau.

Murdoch wrote:I've come to hate that book not for anything wrong with the text, but because each time an Amazon reviewer or whoever disagrees about a film being good they immediately title their review "The Emperor has no clothes." And it causes my mind to implode.

HarryLong wrote:I'm trying to decide if the Emperor's New Clothes BS is better or worse than being called a snob for not liking mindless summer blockbusters as much as we're supposed to.

Perkins Cobb wrote:And that movie with Ian Holm as Napoleon really sucked, too.

I watched this the other day. Its quite slow in places and has this rather weird character prancing around. All I can say is, what a waste of life.

Is this how all this directors movies are? This is the first i've seen of him. How does "ran" rank in his catalog of movies?

I viewed the French language version. This film may or may not follow the history of the event fairly closely but I do not know the history. Since I do not know the historical details, I will not address its historical accuracy but I am very skeptical of its objectivity. There appears to be a fabricated leftist slant in the film. The characters are all stereotypical of leftist propaganda. The left are portrayed as being peace loving and only driven to violence by a wildly violent, conspiratorial, right wing, christian, conservative, nationalist and organized conspiracy. Any media that renders an implied truth as being black and white, causes me to immediately suspect deception on the part of the artist. The acting was good and I enjoyed the cinematography but the film seems to be nothing more than propaganda to push the nonsense of communism or at least a leftist socialist agenda. It may or may employ out of context historical information (it undeniably employed biased character portrayals). In spite of its propaganda failings it was at least entertaining. Very refreshing compared with the cotton candy, sticky, gooey make you want to vomit, crap films made here in the US today. In all I rate it low not because it is a bad film but because it is propaganda. If it did not attempt to pimp what should have been a long dead leftist rhetoric (even in that time) I would have enjoyed it more

knives wrote:What about Z?

swo17 wrote:Ha! Somehow I guessed he was referring to Ran right when the guy said it "has this rather weird character prancing around."

old rehash sold as new, March 28, 2008
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
101 Dalmations was 1 of my favs of disney so i waited a long time as it had to come out of the vaults, i waited in vain the thick black lines around the animated figures is so old-school! what a disappointment-- i'm sure after waiting for years disney could have done a better job and they shouldn't raise their prices & lower their standards-- and those useless trailers that no one wants to view-- so there! please stop making 2 disc when 1 is enough

DL Productions UK wrote:As this was part of the Masters Of Cinema series, I was hoping for a really good movie, but sadly this is not it, Prends Ton Bac D'abord is rather depressing and at times is like a National Lampoon movie without the funnies. It seems to take itself too seriously for a teen movie, though the angst is the same today as it was back in 1979 when this was made.

I didn't like any of the characters either, especially Bernard, who was just annoying - they all seem to be set not to take their Bac (like A levels) and just do what they can to survive in a dull mining town (Lens) - with some of the cast desperate to go to Paris.

Maurice Pialat doesn't really do much to help you like these people neither, actually I am sure he's set on us not liking them, especially the way he makes the old folk flip out when the kiddies are not doing as they're told, but really this just isn't a good movie, there's no real point in it all, and we really don't see anything that would really revolutionise our world. This film doesn't even leave you asking questions, and it's not funny at all.

The DVD is good if you like this, with the "Apres Le Bac" featurette where Bernard Tronczak goes back to Lens 28 years after the film, and shows us the haunts they used. This is quite good if you like the movie, and there are interviews. You can easily turn off the subs too which is nice.

Disappointing really for this series.