benovite's Reviews

B.S. I Love You (1971)

1/10

4 April 2011

I finally got to see B.S. I Love You in its entirety recently. I had seen part of it before but not the entire thing/travesty/debacle.

I can safely report that the reviewer from Denver is correct: it is indeed a mess. It's shot bad, cast bad, written bad, musically scored bad and just all around bad. Definitely not in the category of 'so bad it's good' either.

Where to begin.. let's see. OK the main character played by Peter Kastner(RIP). It might be difficult to find a more awkward, sweaty, unattractive actor to look at for 90 minutes. Sure you could cast a sickly old man with one eye, but Kastner was available for this blatant Graduate rip-off. Woody Allen isn't always the easiest to look at either, but the key difference is Allen is a cinematic genius.

Now before I proceed further with my review I'd like to provide the link to the New York Times review dated April 1st, 1971: http://tinyurl.com/3exoxpw

(IMDb links to it in the critics review area)

I'm not sure if Howard Thompson's review of BS I Love You was an April Fool's joke or not, but apparently this guy loved the movie, gushing about the "gifted people" people involved in making this "neatly organized morality comedy with bright contemporary trimmings". Keeping in mind that he wrote his review in 1971 when this movie opened, makes me wonder what drugs Mr. Thompson was on when he viewed the movie. He goes on to say that "The best thing about the picture is the funny, blithely warm performance of Peter Kastner".

Wow, really Thompson? Funny? Warm? Kastner comes across like a dead wet fish. He's about as funny and warm as the flu on a hot Summer's day. Thompson goes on to gush about how "appealing" Kastner is and such. Read the review, it's a milestone in up your ass opinions, meaning your opinion is certainly up your ass because that's where you pulled it from. Unless of course it's all an April Fool's gag. I don't know.

What I do know is that BS I Love You is an atrocious film. The classic "what not to do film". For starters, yes it liberally borrows some elements from The Graduate, a movie that apparently Mr. Kastner was up for but thankfully didn't get. Dustin Hoffman won the lead part in that one(whew! can you imagine Kastner's Bejamin Braddock?). Kastner's character sleeps with an older lady and finds out that a young lady that had been pursuing him is her daughter. Whatever. We've seen this before and done infinitely better.

You know what else we've seen before? The ad agency guy that loses the big account etc etc. It's usually done in an interesting way(see every other movie dealing with ad men)

Anyway let me cut to the chase. So Kastner's extremely unappealing and difficult to look at, yet we have to look at him in his angst-ridden, over-emotional behavior, running like an absolutely ninny towards the end of the movie.

The man runs like a ninny. And that's being kind.

Practically every actor is sweating up a storm in every scene. Was there even a makeup person involved in this picture? It's an uncomfortable movie to watch because of all the sweat alone! The crappy dialog from the actors is difficult to hear; thanks sound guy. And to top it off, it's filmed like a really poor student film with really bad lighting(most scenes are very darkly lit) or angles that just don't work(never let shrubbery upstage your actors).

Story-wise you don't care for any of these losers and you have to wonder why a couple of these attractive women would want to be associated with Kastner's character because he's Such. A. Loser!

And the music.. Yikes! They got some local band to sing all the music and it's just wrong, especially when they inject it into practically every scene of the loser life that Kastner lives. A pathetic man appears even more pathetic when back by pathetic sounding music.

If there were a category of movies called "Suicide Movies", movies by which you can commit suicide to, this one would fall safely into that category.

Only to be seen for the morbidly curious, I'll close by adding another quote from the New York Times' Howard Thomspon: "This marks the first feature written and directed by Steven H. Stern, produced by Arthur M. Broidy and photographed in color by David Dans. Nice going, men. Let's have another. Soon."

How about not. Ever.

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Sandcastles (1972 TV Movie)

1/10

So let me get this straight: Everyone who reviewed this movie loved it?

9 March 2011

With all gold stars? No one thought it was ham-fisted, wannabe soap opera-ish, poorly written, acted, directed and shot? So either every reviewer before me is either a 40+ year old divorced woman with a minimum of 3 cats or 60+ year old women with 6 or more cats.

This thing is awful! I understand the gist of it, dead guys comes back to haunt a woman. But everything is else is just plain wrong. I saw this on the fox movie channel recently and I have to admit that I do love this movie.

But not for the reasons anyone else mentioned. This easily falls into the "it's so bad it's good" category of movie. Because it's Bad with a capital B. I think Jan Michael Vincent went straight to Danger Island after this. Bonnie Bedelia(sp?) good lord, I don't know if she was overacting or just plain stoned. Hershal Bernardi was um, overacting. The music is completely uncalled for, like it was made for another movie and shoe-horned into this thing.

And let me get this straight; Bonnie character gets in a car accident and Hershal's character lets her hang around his restaurant. So Bonnie does, FOR EVER. As in she doesn't leave? Shouldn't she have been taken to a hospital? Because you know, she was involved in an ACCIDENT? This movie is mind-blowing. Ly-bad. I will say though that I loved the brief shots of Sunset blvd. and La Cienega circa 1972(when Jan walks out of the bank). I think the filmmakers were doubling Sunset blvd for San Francisco.

Anyway, sure if you get the chance don't miss this movie. Because apparently you'll think it's either the best movie ever made or the worst! Oh and Gary Crosby's character; good lord! Vile.

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The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)

10/10

A Classic/Great movie/Doesn't Suck

11 August 2010

Warning: Spoilers

The Yellow Rolls Royce is a sort of a cinematic epiphany. I had seen a few parts of it in the past but recently thanks to TCM I was able to see the entire movie. The movie is broken up into three stories. Rex Harrison's story, with French actress Jeanne Moreau, begins the movie and immediately you are given one of life's most, if not THE most, important lessons.

You have a proud rich married man with everything he wants. He gets the ball rolling with the yellow Rolls Royce by purchasing it brand new for his wife(Moreau) as an anniversary present. Harrison is confident, classy, debonair and charming. He knows what he wants and he gets it.

But when he catches his wife cheating on him..we see a man utterly destroyed. There are a lot of fine examples in movies of what love can do to a person. Harrison's performance, as subtle and subdued as it is, is staggering. It's like cutting a man in two and seeing his innards in all their glory. In a ways it's profound, as if a new truth were revealed and a new reaction resulted.

I've seen a few of Harrison's performances in various films and I've had respect for him. With The Yellow Rolls Royce, Harrison turns in an extremely moving and touching performance with what little screen time he has due to the length of his respective story. The tortured look on Harrison's face as he makes his way to his beloved yellow Rolls Royce and his beloved wife is worth seeing this movie alone. When he hangs his head low next to his gold cup winning horse, you see a side of a man that probably never existed before that moment. As someone calls to him, he straightens himself, adjusts, turns around..and we see a man forever changed. Very few movies can get something like that across in such an effective way.

So what is one of, if not THE, most important lessons of life learned through Harrison's rich tale? You can seemingly have it all and in reality have nothing. Amidst his riches and ever-growing cache of prizes, we see a man terribly humbled and changed by the discovery of his wife's cheating ways. Towards the end of his story when he proclaims that he will hate living from now on, you believe it and you can sympathize with him and his broken heart because we've all been through it. Love changes you, especially when it damages you.

~ When the next story begins with George C. Scott, Art Carney and Shirley McClaine we are ready for something lighter, funnier and we get it. But there's still plenty of angst to go around, whether in the heart or the back seat of the yellow Rolls Royce.

There's a wonderful moment in an Italian showroom when the salesman briefly explains how the car got 20,000 miles on its odometer. He mentions a maharajah or something like that losing the car while gambling. It makes you want to see what happened in the interim between the first and second story in the movie! The second story of a mobster, his moll and their keeper/buddy/Art Carney is a good one. Light-hearted, but as I said, it still has some weight to it because it's still dealing with matters of love.

This segment is wonderful, the only detracting thing is the horrible makeup job they did to poor Alain Delon! I realize he's supposed to be Italian(Delon is French) but they didn't have to apply the tan makeup so heavy. It's not a terribly distracting thing, although it makes you want to see what Delon really looks like without the brownie batter. The guys handsome with or without it and he emits a charismatic and dare I say "amoral" charm. As a matter of fact, this second story can be titled "Amoral Amore". See the movie, you'll know why.

Oh and also, forget domani! ~ Now the third and last act is a special one. It stars Ingrid Bergman as a politico/ambassador and Omar Sharif as a Yugoslavian revolutionary. Some people may see the parallels between Sharif's role here and his 14 hour opus mega epic Doctor Zhivago.

I recently saw Dr. Z in its entirety for the first time and I was completely underwhelmed.

In my humble opinion, Omar Sharif does more here with his roll in The Yellow Rolls Royce and by turn is GIVEN more to do in his 30 plus minutes segment than all of the illustriously overrated Doctor Zhivago. Hell, they guy sounded infinitely more poetic than his supposed poetic character in Dr. Z!

Ingrid Bergman: an absolute hoot. There are a lot of transformations in this movie. You can see characters actually change, transform and evolve, the yellow Rolls Royce being one of them! It goes from riches to revolutionary rages. Bergman's Miss Millett role is perhaps the character in the movie that goes through the most drastic transformation.

At first she is frigid, uncompassionate, uncaring and selfish. She wants to eat, not be bothered and you better get her her martini. She cares little for people or warnings of invasions. Omar Sharif charms his way into her life and as a result, she changes. She becomes a different person. She becomes caring, compassionate and selfless. It's a remarkable role and I'm not about to compare it to any of her other roles because I haven't seen a lot of Ingrid Bergman's movies.

There's a moment at the end of the movie in which she reflects upon her adventures, turns around to look at the yellow Rolls Royce and she steps back out of frame so we see only the car.

It's quite a moment when a legendary actress gets out of her way for us to look upon a car.

But oh what a car it is.

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Shanks (1974)

1/10

This movie brought to you by Bombay Gin®

13 March 2010

Watching this on TCM as I type this. I recorded it to my DVR from TCM's airing last night- 3/12/10, in case anyone wants to get technical about it;)

My impression of this 1974 movie "Shanks"?

IT'S THE ONLY MOVIE CREATED FOR PEOPLE OVER 90.

It's dreadful. Extremely slow and needless to say, boring. The humor, or rather attempts at humor fall very, very flat. So flat in fact that what should be construed as humor comes across as mean-spirited, creepy and obviously to my eyes not funny. I mean trying to import Marcel Marceau's unique brand of French humor to U.S. audiences? Who thought this was going to work? William Castle apparently.

Poor Marcel. Watch him proudly strut about the American? countryside looking utterly and completely out of place. This debonair older sophisticate should be strolling the streets of Paris in his trendy euro fashions. Instead he's playing Uncle Creepy to a young blonde girl, who apparently has no friends or family even though she lives in a charming house with perfectly blooming flowers. The American kids just outside her door feign interest in Marcel Marceau, I think they merely humor the old creepy French guy into making him think that he's entertaining them.

Throughout the movie Marcel is stuck with an angry, confused look of "why the hell did I decide to make this movie again when I could have stayed in Paris drinking Absinthe?" And speaking of drinking, this movie is awash in Bombay Gin®. The product placement incidents actually out-number the cast members. No really. In one scene at a general store there's a shelf fully stocked with Bombay Gin®. So as clearly as the gin itself, this movie fueled by gin. Which explains a lot actually.

Oh god. I just watched a scene that involved the brother of Marcel's character being attacked by a reanimated rooster.

To illustrate this scene here I will provide makeshift screen captures to get across the immense lunacy of this movie:

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8048/image030g.jpg http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/7955/image029a.jpg http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/4836/image028s.jpg http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/1905/image027n.jpg http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/9040/image026k.jpg http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9454/image025ww.jpg http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1715/image024qk.jpg http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2791/image023ck.jpg http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2702/image031bt.jpg

Shortly after this scene the be-wigged mother is struck down and killed in a hit-and-run accident in which the driver asks the important question of Marcel's brother Barton; "You didn't see anything did ya?"

I certainly wish I hadn't!

This is one of those movies in which I would have LOVED to have sat with a paying audience as they watched this thing unfold before them when it first came out. I dare say their reactions, most likely followed by their stampeding to the exits, would have made the price of admission worth it.

So I'm going to go back to giving my full attention to Shanks because I don't want to miss one priceless moment..

However, I still maintain the masterstroke in Marceau's (brief)film career was his brief appearance in Mel Brooks' 1976 movie "Silent Movie". It was such a brilliant thing too because Brooks made a silent movie for (then)modern cinema. And guess who had the only line of dialogue? Of course: Marcel Marceau.

So I will echo his one word utterance from that brilliant and funny 1976 Brooks' film to describe this 1974 experiment titled "Shanks":

NO!

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Speed Racer (2008)

1/10

"Racing is a religion" - And THAT is where the film fails

8 June 2009

I tried watching this movie yesterday and when there was more than a merciless hour left I had to stop the madness. Although there was some initial interest in it because of the absurdly strong visual aspect, this is one of those movies in which at some point I had to loudly announce, "ENOUGH. I HAVE WASTED ENOUGH TIME IN MY LIFE ON THIS PIECE OF ****."

I haven't had many reactions like that to a movie, but this is a rare exception. I mean often films are so bad that they are good in a wacky kinda way.

This movie is just bad. Awful bad. Life tearing out my eyeballs, filling the sockets with salt and vinegar, then putting my eyeballs back in bad.

FIRST of all, it takes itself Way way Way too seriously.

I mean come on! It's a frig-gin' SPEED RACER movie, not a BIBLICAL EPIC minus Charlton Heston! When "Speed" says something to the big corporate mogul guy about how racing is a religion in his family- THAT is where the film utterly gets the entire concept of Speed Racer WRONG.

It's not that serious folks! Lighten up! There are numerous, painful moments of complete seriousness that, at least this movie tries to achieve, but completely fail because the source material is something entirely different from what this movie is. They shouldn't have even called it Speed Racer, maybe something like Overstuffed Racer or something. I know the Whatchamacallem Brothers love to infuse spirituality in their movies(Matrix), but the seriousness in which this movie takes the Speed Racer cartoon is absurd. And it's simply not fun as result.

Now let's move on to the visuals, because lord(and Speed) knows that this movie is the visual equivalent of EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK.

How many bright colors and moving objects can they place in a single frame? Not enough apparently!

It's the visual equivalent of HR Puffinstuf throwing up and filming it. It's completely overblown and overdone, and not in a fun way but in an annoying, bizarre, drugged out LSD-on-heroin-on-mushrooms-on-pot way. It'll give you a hangover about 30 minutes in!

It's as if Tim Burton, Laz Lurhhman and Satan spawned a child that made this movie. I kept expecting to see Barbie and Ken driving the cars. Remember that "Barbie Girl" music video from a group called Aqua? Well this is the epic expanded version.

But enough with the visuals(even though I'll be haunted by them for years to come). Let's talk about the acting(OK I talk you listen). It's pretty bad because again, EVERYONE TAKES THIS **** WAY TOO SERIOUSLY.

Besides that, how many frig-gin' huge closeups can I watch of the bloated and dyed John Goodman? Not enough according to the Whatever Brothers apparently. Oh and the bloated corporate English pig? Again, not enough. We need to see these big, fat bloated faces on screen a lot- because that's what Speed Racer was all about. Susan Sarandon- had enough of her big old bot-ox face too. Besides that grotesque visual aspect- they all seem terribly bored with their roles, because you know what? THEY PROBABLY WERE. This is one of those 'cash the paycheck movies' for these guys. Just do it, get the check and shut up.

Those transitions with big actors heads got really old fast too. Been done too many times in other movies, nothing new here except to drag the idea and beat it with a dead horse.

Actually, everything got really old and really fast in this movie. That was the only time the filmmakers were able to convey some sense of speed, because otherwise it was all one big unrealistic video game.

I could go on, and I dare say that film courses in colleges should dissect this movie for educational purposes pertaining to how NOT to make an adaptation.

I'm sure three year-old might like the whiz-bang of it all, but anyone over that age should avoid this- no scratch that, actually go out of your way to watch Speed Racer to see what utter crap Hollywood turns out these days.

Just don't blame me if you want to commit suicide because you can't get the time or money you spent on this movie back.

Thanks, Whatchamacallem Brothers! Now go back to flipping burgers or something else constructive besides polluting movie screens with this garbage.

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The Phantom Tollbooth (1970)

1/10

Let's see...

31 March 2009

1)The animation is bad, especially by Chuck Jones' standards. If you've seen any amount of his work with Bugs Bunny or Tom & Jerry then you will see why. Things suddenly have or change color, some things skip a few frames of animation, and at some points it looks like a 2nd grade class animated it with markers.

2)There is no story, or at least none that I could find. It's basically one long experimental movie mixing live action with animation. There are very little live action scenes in the beginning to establish anything such as - where are Milo's parents? The kid doesn't live by himself does he? It's as if Chuck wanted to get to the animation as fast as possible.

3) When we get to this animated world, it's very mundane and not very imaginative, ESPECIALLY the opening scenes involving the doldrums.

Do we really need to see the main character yawning while other snot-like creates yawn too? This is movie-making rule #1: Don't have too much yawning in your movie or else the audience will be yawning right along with it! The part with the doldrums was torture.

3) It's hard to make out a lot of the dialogue because of the sound effects and what they tried to do with the voices.

It looks like crap and sounds like crap.

I take it that this was supposed to be a sort of Alice in Wonderland experience, but it's not very fun or imaginative. I mean the police officer with one long leg that's a wheel(?) should tell you how lacking this movie is.

When I saw this on TCM the other day Robert Osbourne said that this was made in 1968 but released in 1970, mostly due to MGM having a constant change of guard and because they didn't know how to sell this movie. I believe it! No one beyond the age of 1 should watch this.

Actually, I can't imagine audiences going to see this in a movie theater. I barely was able to pay attention at home- and I didn't for a long stretch, deciding to do something else while it was on.

Something more fun.

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Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)

10/10

What's not to love?

16 March 2009

I wish I was first exposed to this in a movie theater when it was first released, as some of the commentors had been. It really is a treasure. To be fair I have not seen any other version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips and neither do I want to. To me this stands as a perfect version. I first saw it on TCM years ago and never forgot it. I had the pleasure of watching it with my girlfriend yesterday, although I had recorded it from TCM days earlier. There were portions of the movie in which both of us were teary-eyed, it really is a moving movie.

And shouldn't that be what movies are all about?

The music is beautiful, the film was shot wonderfully. The acting is top notch. And the story is delicate and timeless.

One of my favorite movies of all-time.

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Modern Romance (1981)

4/10

OK sure, it's a realistic take on romance- BUT

2 February 2009

Warning: Spoilers

when you get to the scenes that involve Albert Brooks without his shirt... try not to gag on a fur ball.

I like Albert Brooks. I've seen most, if not all of his movies but it was the first time seeing this one. Modern Romance is an interesting take on the subject of love. There are few movies that handle the desperation of love as well or as overtly as Modern Romance, although 1979's Chilly Scenes of Winter comes very close. They both essentially deal with obsessed men that are too psychologically attracted/obsessed to their respective women.

Where-as Chilly Scenes of Winter borders on the subject stalking, this movie has a more grounded foundation with the subject of love because both people are already in a relationship.. and out of the relationship.. and back in it again.

And because it's a movie that was released in 1981, it is of its time in terms of styles and such. That's the main reason I like this movie. My basic rule when it comes to movies is "If it sucks at least it may have some historic relevance", you know time capsule stuff.

Which leads me to the horrific scenes of Albert Brooks sans shirt.

The man is hair. Very hair. Like he's wearing a black curly fur sweater-hairy. And what's worse is he almost looks burn victim-hairy. It's not a pleasant sight and the scenes with him without a shirt go on and on. Back in the early 80's hairy men were seen as normal and nothing shocking. But in 2009 the sight of something like this is just plain revolting. Sorry, Albert! I wish at some point someone said "hey let's try this scene but with you wearing a simple t-shirt, I mean you might scare people". It's just really bad and I feel sorry for the poor pretty actress that had to deal with Albert Brooks naked body on top of hers. She was probably pulling out his hairs from her teeth for days after that.

Anyway, it's an OK movie. It could have been better if I hadn't see Albert Brooks without his shirt for what seemed like 10 long continuous minutes because that will forever taint my viewing of this movie.

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Lisa (1962)

7/10

Good movie, dumbest dog in history

26 January 2009

Saw this on FMC recently. It's a good movie, very moving, a bit over-dramatic but the story makes up for it. Great production values, good music, wonderful scenery courtesy of Holland. I loved seeing Amsterdam in the early 60's because I was there in 2005- and apparently much hasn't changed in the interim! OK so the dog. Holland is the only country to have a national dog. I learned that from a snapple cap. The national dog(the name escapes me) is the dog that are on the barges, kind of like captain's mates. I learned from this movie that they're very useful when navigating in the fog because they bark and the other barge dogs bark as well so they can tell how far they are.

So why is the barge dog in this movie the dumbest dog? Because the captain/owner is a smuggler, yet when police/inspectors board his barge the dog almost immediately sniffs out the stash area where the illegal stuff is AND on top of that goes to the trouble of opening the stash area for the police for them to see. Wow.

Other than that good movie, you may like the dog and his funny ways. He's probably a narc. ARF!

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Miami Vice (2006)

1/10

A movie so incredibly bad... it's just- BAD!

26 November 2007

Saw this stinker for the first time on HBO a few days ago.

Yikes! What the heck was that?! Was that an attempt at a Miami Vice movie or an attempt to bore the audience to death? OK first of all I like Collateral, Michael Mann's previous attempt. That is a good movie. Stylish, original and well acted.

Unfortantely Mann tried to apply the same technique he used to make Collateral with Miami Vice.

WRONG! All wrong.

A Miami Vice movie shouldn't feature terribly dark wardrobes for the characters.

Collin Farrel's character looked LIKE A DORK with that stupid biker/white trash mustache and long hair. He looked EXTREMELY out of place.

Jamie Foxx, well you know what, I was going to type up more for this movie but I'm going cut it short.

Miami Vice sucks. Bad. Miami Vice sucks bad.

I can't belieeeeve how bad it sucks.

'nuf said.

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The Allnighter (1987)

Wow, just wow(in a very bad way).

24 September 2007

Saw this movie yesterday and ho-lee cow. Excruciatingly bad. I mean HORRIFICALLY terrible.

In the realm of 80's teenage flicks, this would have to rank as the all-time worst. Matter of fact they should have called it Alltime Worst rather than The Allnighter.

I mean it. is. bad. Have I mentioned how bad it is? First off, the acting. There is some semblance of acting, if you look hard enough. Most of the actors have zero charisma and little to no personality, aside from Joan Cusak who at times looks like Tom Hanks in drag(Bossom Buddies?). The movie doesn't make you care for any of the characters. I think we were hoping someone died, that's how devoid of feeling we were towards these people. Susanah Hoffs: wow. I'll get to her later.

The writing/script- absolute rubbish. It's like 3 year old wrote the script based on an idea they had of what their teenage years might be like, and if that's the case it'll be mighty depressing! Bad dialogue, no story to speak of. Just a group of people gathering in a certain places.

The direction: REALLY bad. Like 80's porn bad. I think they should have actually turned this stinker into a porn movie at some point during its production. Would have been infinitely more entertaining. As it is, the director(Susanah Hoff's MOTHER?? Are you serious??)...

wait I can imagine this scenario, "Honey, I'm going to direct you in your first movie! Yay!" Oh boy. =/ I bet Susanah and her moms drew inspiration from Prince's Purple Rain or something to make them want to go there with this attempt. Anyway I'm digressing. The director is horrid. Badly framed scenes, badly directed scenes with actors, just badly bad. Like I said there are times when you think you're watching a porn movie. Speaking of which, apparently Susanah's mom really likes looking at her daughter with the least amount of clothing on or naked. The one saving grace of this movie is/are the scenes involving the director's daughter posing in front of a mirror in her underwear(nice butt!). Unfortunately there's nothing going on in the upper region, poor Susanah. =( The sex scene with Susanah and the guy are weird and far from sexy. I think it's time for more kudos to her mother for that. Yay, go mom! The music is bad 80's music. I think it's mostly Susanah Hoff's stuff but it's often hard to hear or tell, which may be a good thing. There are a couple of signature 80's tunes though.

So back to the director's daughter.... she can't act, let's just leave it at that.

No wait, there are times when the movie completely forgets about Susanah Hoff's character and the movie just goes on without her. There will be a scene or two that start with Suze and they're not returned to in order to see their completion. Then suddenly we're shown her again and it's like WHO CARES? The movie was crashing and burning without her, not like her scenes are going to add anything.

So basically bad writing, editing, acting and directing.

Did I miss anything=?

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The Chicken Chronicles (1977)

1/10

Terrible

13 August 2007

Let me cut to the chase: this movie sucks. Really bad. It's not even good suckage, it's just plain bad suckage. There is no appeal to this movie other than perhaps hearing of a movie called "The Chicken Chronicles" or reading the book and thinking, "Hey I wanna see that!" Well don't. OK see it, but be prepared to be bored and feel like someone swatting you in the back of your head with a shovel.

This is how truly bad cinema is done. No story, no reason to set the story in 1969, no comedy(unless your idea of comedy are a few gross-out scenes- HILARIOUS!), no reason to see this movie.

I remember back in like '80 or thereabouts, I saw this movie advertised in the monthly HBO schedule they published and thinking, 'huh OK would like to see that'. Well it took me 27 YEARS and I finally saw this turkey a few weeks ago.

Wow now I know why it took me so long to see it: I wasn't missing anything! It's bad in a way that only a senior citizen thinking how young people act should be. This movie literally has no meaning and if it were fun to watch then that would be forgiven, but it's not.

1977 produced some bad movies, we sometimes forget that in the beautiful aura of Star Wars, Close Encounters, Annie Hall and such. But movies like this actually exist and came out the same year.

Can't win'em all! =/

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ABBA: The Definitive Collection (2002 Video)

8/10

A career-spanning collection of wonderful music videos from the gods of pop.

15 March 2003

If you're an ABBA fan or just a fan of good music in general, this assortment of 35 music videos which spans ABBA's career from 1974's Waterloo to 1982's Under Attack is indeed definitive. Simply put, it's a fantastic collection of music and images that mostly focuses on the 1970's era of ABBA's career, because that's when they reigned supreme in their international pop music kingdom. Practically all the videos(except for a few of them) were directed by acclaimed Swedish director Lasse Hallström as he was still earning a name for himself as a director. He would later go on to direct movies such as What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat and The Shipping News. With ABBA, Hallström crafted mostly fun images of the group that reflected their music which presented them as friends, lovers, and of course superb entertainers.

While some of the music videos or 'promo clips' as they were originally known(the term 'music video' wouldn't be known until MTV came along in 1981) are often straight performances of ABBA's music, eventually Hallström began to incorporate more storytelling devices that are very common these days with music videos. In that regard, ABBA and Hallström are pioneers in the creation of music videos. Sure The Beatles and many other popular groups prior to ABBA used music videos or film clips to promote themselves, but I think ABBA perfected the concept of videos as being a very viable form of entertainment and not just a promotional tool. And we're talking years before Michael Jackson, Madonna or any of those artists that bloomed during MTV's early heyday came along. It's interesting watching how ABBA evolves from one video to the other, whether through the sound of their music or the way they dress. The level of visual sophistication in presenting the music increases as the years progress with every ABBA album and video. And while the visual style does eventually hit a creative wall that echoes back to their first videos, they are still entertaining and the music remains as solid as ever.

Besides that, their music and these videos can make you feel happy and that's important. The brilliance of ABBA can invoke feelings most people have forgotten existed with music.

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