Collecting Movie Reviews

Summary:
Leon (Jean Reno) is perhaps the best hit man in New York. He is hired out by a member of the Italian mob, Tony (Danny Aiello), and makes pretty good money. But, he just happens to live next to a family that is about to be torn apart by a corrupt DEA agent, Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman), who is using the father to store drugs that he later resells. One of the daughter's in the family, Mathilda (Natalie Portman), is a bit rebellious, but considering how she is treated by her father and the things she has to put up with, she's probably dealing with things pretty well.

When Agent Stansfield comes looking for his dope and Mathilda's dad (Michael Badalucco) is missing some of it, things turn ugly. Mathilda just happens to be out of the house buying groceries, but when she returns, she makes a smart choice and walks right past her family's apartment and right up to Leon's door. Against his intuition, Leon lets her in. Thus begins a very complicated relationship.

Leon, a 'cleaner' as he calls it, can't be fettered by a 13 year-old girl (her exact age is never revealed). So he tries to tell her she can't stay, but she convinces him that if he makes her leave, he'll have killed her. She also finds out what he does then decides she also wants to become a 'cleaner' to exact her revenge. After extensive negotiations, Leon begins training her, even taking her on jobs to let her get experience. While all of this is happening, Mathilda also happens to fall in love with Leon, which definitely complicates things, but Leon doesn't give in to her enticements and remains a 'virtuous' hit-man.

Eventually, Mathilda decides she is ready to begin exacting her revenge, but fails in her first attempt (she goes straight to Stansfield, who catches her). Leon gets her out of it, but in the process kills a number of Stansfield's men. Stansfield, in turn, calls in, well, pretty much everyone and a veritable army attacks Leon at his apartment (after again capturing Mathilda). Leon puts up a good fight, frees Mathilda, and gets her safely to Tony's, but is ultimately caught by Stansfield. But Leon doesn't give up, even with a bullet in his back. Using the ring method (a grenade), he blows both himself and Stansfield up. The End.

My Comments:
This really should be a very disturbing movie. A 40 year-old professional hit man taking in a 13 year-old orphan girl and training her to become an assassin while fending off her sexual advances, think about it? But the way the movie turns out, it is absolutely hilarious. You can't help but love Leon - he is the most innocent, likable character since George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, despite the fact that he's a professional assassin. After all, he absolutely refuses to kill women and children, and he drinks at least a glass of milk a day. What's not to like?

The acting in this movie is superb. Even the person you might think would be the worst, a very young Natalie Portman, was good (much better here than in Star Wars). Perhaps the worst character was Gary Oldman, whose over-acting started to get on my nerves. I mean, come on, if I saw a DEA agent that looked and acted like that on the street, I'd be the first person to either gun him down or turn him over to the police - he was a junkie in a bad, beige suit. But Jean Reno's stellar performance, as an incredibly innocent hit man, more than made up for Oldman's shortcomings. After that, I'm thinking Reno is a new favorite actor. He was brilliant!

The story is very entertaining, you just have to be willing to give it the necessary suspension of belief to accept that a kind-hearted hit-man would be willing to take in an orphaned girl. Other than that, it was so full of surprises it kept you wanting more. I don't think I can say anything bad about the story. It was great.

Overall, I found myself laughing at the sheer absurdity of this movie so much that it was almost more of a comedy than a drama. Yes, it is a drama and it sucks that Leon ends up dying, but when Leon comes out as John Wayne and Mathilda just can't figure out who he is, you can't help but laugh. And the fact that he uses Mathilda's innocence to bust into apartments then lets her practice shooting the men he is about to kill with paintballs, is so far over the top that you can't keep a straight face. Yes, you could see this as a very disturbing twist on morality, but I think it was intended to be something similar to Pulp Fiction - this would and could never happen. Thus, you have to laugh. If you think your values would be offended by something like this, well, you definitely don't want to see this movie. If you liked Pulp Fiction, I would highly recommend this film.

though some people didnt find this movie moving or great but I did. its about a hitman named Leon(Jean Reno) who gets involved with Natalie Portman after her family gets killed by Gary Oldman and his henchmen. Portman wants revenge for her familys death and Reno shows her the way. with some non-stop action that brings the movie to its title name. Oldman is great to watch as the mad pill popping dirty cop.

The first time i saw Scarface I thought there was nothing that could top that movie into I witnessed The Professional.It has incredible acting with a young Natalie Portman,Jean Reno,Danny Aiello,and Gary Oldman who plays the best crooked cop and quite possible the best villian ever.The Synopsis is a little girl's(Natalie Portman)family is gun downed by D.E.A. agents.Ending up in the hands of a professional hitman(Jean Reno)a romance blossoms between a man and a little girl.The little girl with no where to go learns from the hitman where she soon seeks revenge on the man who killed her family.The soundtrack goes perfect with the film and the ending was done perfect.I personnally recomend The Professional over Leon which is the Uncut International Film with an extra 23 mins. of footage.But you will wanna see both trust me.If you like this movie i recommend Ronin which has has Jean Reno in it playing co-star the the talented Robert Deniro

To get this out of the way right now, "Seven Samurai", as a film, is a 5-star picture. Provided the audience has an inkling of what they're getting into, this movie can be easily considered one of Akira Kurosawa's best efforts. The expert directing, multi-layered story, and mounds of social commentary make for a film that sits up there with "Citizen Kane" at the top of many critic's "top 10" lists. It's a truly outstanding film, and one that holds up to many repeat viewings and careful analysis.

As an aside, this movie will be quite lost on those raised on modern-day Hollywood films. Anyone going into it expecting a shallow, sword-swinging thrill ride will come away confused (and probably angry) at the "slow" pace, the three-hour runtime, the subtitles, the fact that it's in black and white, the fact that it's not particularly violent, the fact that they talk so much, etc. etc. ad nauseam. I'd figure this would go without saying, but there it is again, just in case: If your idea of a fantastic movie is "The Fast and the Furious", run away right now; what you're looking at now is the movie version of Kryptonite.

Assuming the audience has some depth perception, this becomes THE film to own, and should be a cornerstone in any great DVD collection. Fans will recognize the label of the famous Criterion Collection displayed proudly across the disc case, and under normal circumstances that's indicative of a DVD packed to the gills with extras for the real film fan. The only issue with this disc (and hence the 4-star rating) is that the DVD is VERY slight on the extras, essentially giving you the film and that's it.

Normally, this wouldn't be worth docking a point, given that this is both a very early DVD, and also given that this is the only place to get the genuine, 3+ hour Japanese version of the film. When it was picked up by RKO for it's first U.S. release decades ago, the film had been greatly reduced in length, and there have been various other cuts throughout the years. This version is easily the most complete, and that alone is quite substantial.

In all honesty, it's BECAUSE of the importance of the film that I feel like I got a little cheated with this disc. Were this a film of any lower calibur, I think I'd be fine, but this is SEVEN-FREAKING-SAMURAI we're talking about! If you're a Kurosawa fan, you really, really want to get as much as possible out of this film. As it stands, a real fan is forced to go to external sources on the film (not hard to find) to get all the juicy extra information that compliments it, which really isn't so bad, but the thought of what could have been had this film been released a year or two later on DVD makes me winsome.

What's crucial to point out, however, is that this shortcoming is really in no way the fault of Criterion, who have always had the utmost respect for the films they produce. It's much more a time factor: This is disc #2 in the collection (they're well beyond #200 by this point) and at the time, the special editions as we know them did not exist. Packing the entire film onto a single disc was a feat in and of itself, and taking into account where the technology was at the time, this really is the best the fans could have hoped for: Seven Samurai, uncut, looking and sounding as good as it was ever going to.

So, think of the 4-star rating as a time-adjusted thing. This movie is still required, but know what you're getting so there's no dissapointment.

And Kurosawa fans, take heart: Criterion's putting out a fantastic-looking version of "Ikiru", which is arguably the best Kurosawa film ever, and they're bringing all the fans' expecations to bear. It looks like it's going to be perfect.

In the meantime, Seven Samurai is a no-brainer for any film fan.

It's an honest-to-God classic, and one of the best films ever made.

If the title seems to be hyperbole, I should point out that it's not just my opinion, but the opinion of almost all movie critics. This movie is on many top-ten-movies-of-all-time lists, for good reason. For many years, this movie was seen only in a shortened form, but Criterion has restored it to its original cut as first released. Not only that, but it has included a superb commentary that was so good that after I watched the DVD for the first time without commentary, I started to watch it with the commentary thinking I would spend a few minutes and was so fascinated that I watched the whole movie again just to find out what the commentator had to say! And this is a long movie, over 3 hours long, but it doesn't drag.

The basic story (ripped off by the inferior U.S. remake, The Magnificent Seven) is pretty straightforward. Bandits attack a village and take its crops and some of its women. When the villagers learn that the bandits plan to return, the decide to hire itinerant samurai to defend it, with the only pay being room and board. They find a remarkable samurai as the leader, and he recruits the other six, including an expert swordsman who lives for his art (the actor who played this part had never handled a sword before this movie, and never did learn to ride a horse!), and a crude bumbler (played by star Toshiro Mifune) who is actually a farmer's son pretending to be a samurai. Incidentally, Mifune was originally considered for the part of the expert swordsman, a role which he played brilliantly in two other Kurosawa movies, Yojimbo - the basis for Clint Eastwood's hit A Fistful of Dollars, and Sanjuro. But this is no simple good versus evil story. Even though the villagers have hired the samurai, they don't trust these "heroes", and hide all their women. And it appears that in the past the villagers may have killed other samurai and hidden their armor - when the samurai discover this, they are not sure they can trust the villagers either. This ambiguity adds depth to the story. All this is gradually revealed as the remainder of the film shows the samurai training the villagers, attacking the bandits to cut down their numbers, and finally, after a few skirmishes, having the climactic battle scene in the driving rain and mud, which captures the chaos of battle as well as anything ever done in the movies. Unlike most movies where the battle scenes always seem to be staged, with the big explosion center screen and nothing much else going on, Kurosawa seems to embed you right in the action so you feel as if it is going on, not just in front of you, but all around you, off- screen as well as on. This is great movie-making, and the commentary explains how he achieved this effect. And at the end, the villagers go back to rice planting, and the samurai "heroes" stand to one side - no triumphal banquet and procession for them. Now that their job is finished, they are ignored.

As I mentioned, even though the film is long, it doesn't drag, because Kurosawa omits unneccessary exposition. One example, early on after one of the samurai is killed in battle, we have a burial scene. Mifune's character, in grief, grabs a battle flag made by the dead samurai, runs on top of one of the huts in the village and defiantly plants it on top of the roof. The camera then pans up to the hills beyond the village, where we see the bandits descending to attack the village. In a few seconds the mood changes from grief to exhilaration as the long awaited battle is joined.

On the other hand, Kurosawa also includes images which, although not strictly necessary to the main narrative line, will remain with you long after the movie is over. An example, at one point the samurai locate the bandit's hideout, and set fire to it to force the bandits out. As the samurai look into the hideout, they see a woman, captured by the bandits. In a silent scene, except for a lone flute playing plaintively on the soundtrack, this woman awakens, sees the fire off-screen, starts to cry out, then decides to remain silent, even though it means she will die a horrible death. The usual martial arts movie would never even consider having a scene like this, but this short, wordless scene speaks eloquently about this nameless woman's condition and deepens the story. It is little touches like this that linger.

Martial arts movie with incredible battle scenes, character study, social commentary, as with all great art, there are a lot of different ways you can view this movie. At the time he made it, Kurosawa said he wanted to revitalize the samurai sword movie, which he considered a dead form. He did more than that - he transformed it! A lot more could, and has, been said about this movie, but bottom line: Nobody who loves movies should miss this - it is essential!

When someone asks me what my favorite movie is, the immediate response is "Seven Samurai", the only movie that ever brought a tear to my eye.
This heroic tale is a tale about real men, men of no materialism, no induldgence (except for one), no pride, men of great temperance, honor, justice, fortitude and courage. These are the things that make this movie so great.

Seven virutous and skilled men who defend the weak from naked aggression with no concern of personal possesions or of whether they live or die. They fight for the shear fact that it is the right thing to do, that it is the moral choice, that the just act is action itself, and that inaction will lead to the loss of innocent lives. Never has a greater film been made or a greater story been told.

Some of my favorite warrior movies are Gladiator, Braveheart, Tombstone, The Patriot, and others of this type, but the men in these movies fight for vengence, and the men in Seven Samurai don't, thats why I have to rank Seven Samurai as my absolute favorite, number 1 movie of all time.

The 2 disc is much better!! It has a 87 min documentary of what happened on and off the set, also the real Von Trapp story. Plus radio commentaries and a documentary of Salsburg. An A++++++!!!!!!!!

Great DVD, with *tons* of extras to keep you amused for hours. All you need now is the 35th Anniversary 2-disc cd set and the SOM: The Making of America's Favorite Movie book by Julia Antopol Hirsch and you'll be the Ultimate Sound of Music fan! :)

I LOVE THE SOUND OF MUSIC! I'm not just saying this because I love to sing and all that kind of stuff, but I love the story, the energy that the actors put forth, especially Julie Andrews. My favorite parts of the movie include the great songs by the great composers. If you already like musicals, you should definitely see The Sound of Music and you'll fall in love with it! The kids made me laugh with this slick wit, well what they thought was slick. Anyway, the whole movie is great. If you ever get a chance to see the play, do that, too!

The Mask of Zorro is a superb action movie. It's a great tail to introduce Zorro to a younger generation. It's the first film to actually have a hispanic play the role. It's the first blockbuster hit for one of the most beautiful woman in the world.

The Mask of Zorro tells the tail of Diego. A man that was Zorro who is imprisoned for 20 years. He gets out of jail and finds a young man Alejandro who is also out for revenge. Diego trains him and teaches him out to fight. It's then that Alejandro and Diego go and get there revenge against the men who hurt them.

Antonio Banderas(Alejandro) is awesome. This is the best movie he has ever done. He plays Zorro to perfection. He puts the Spanish Rico Suave swagger on stage. You fall in love with the character. He does such a great job.

Anthony Hopkins(Diego)is awesome too. It's one of his best roles ever. I like seeing him play a sane good guy. Hopkins is one of the best actors of the last 25 years. Diego is a good character and I don't think anybody buy Hopkins could have pulled him off.

Catherine Zeta Jones is hot in this movie. She is such a beautiful woman. She's one of those flawless ladies that you could stare and admire all day. She plays Elana well and leaves every male jealous of Banderas. If your a guy you can watch the movie for her alone. I have to give personal thanks to the producer Steven Spielberg for discovering her and casting her.

I love the swordplay in the movie. It's great to see a film that doesn't rely on CGI and other special effects. All the swordplay is done well with great choreography. You could watch the movie for that alone.

I love the score that James Horner wrote for the film. He is one of the best in the business. The score accents the movie so well. I love the spansih trumpets. This score really got screwed at the Oscars. The love theme is a beautiful song as well.

I love this film. It's the best swashbuckling film since the 30's and 40's and could be argued as the best ever. Everybody should see this movie. It's a great tail of love and revenge that will leave you entertained and breathless. You'll love it. I've never heard of anybody that didn't.

This movie is super fantastic! I thought it was going to be a serious movie but it had a lot of wit in it. This movie has a spectacular cast. Anthony Hopkins is great in every role he plays. This just proves that he doesn't only have the persona as a cannibal. Antonio Banderas was the perfect men to play the part of the new Zorro. Not only was he smashing he portrayed a great hero. Catherin Zita Jones was just beautiful. Yeah, this is chock full of violence, love and humor. It is one of my favorites.

Here's how big a fan of this movie I am; I bought the original DVD a few years ago, then for Christmas I got the Superbit Edition, only to find out the Special Edition has more extras...
so I'm now going to get that edition. But it's worth it, this movie is one of my favorites ever. I don't really need to get into the plot. All you need to know is it's Catherine Zeta-Jones in her break-through American film debut, and Antonio Banderas, as the first ever hispanic Zorro. The rest of the plot you should know. Thank God for Steven Spielberg, otherwise CZJ might still be stuck doing B movies, instead she's become one of the elite film actresses of our generation...Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Traffic and Chicago. Anyway, this movie was the highlight of my Freshman yr of HS...when I think of summer of '98, I think of 2 movies, Zorro and X-Files. And even though I was a huge X-Phile and quite obsessed, I have to say I liked and still like Zorro way better. I became the hugest CZJ fan and actually took up fencing in college, although I've yet to have my clothes slashed off by someone that looks as hot as Antonio Banderas. The chemistry between Catherine and Antonio is so great, I wanted him to ditch Melanie and hook up with Catherine in real life...cause anything that hot on screen (without an actual love scene mind you) has to translate in reality. But alas, he stayed married, and she got married, and had kids so...at least I have this movie, and hopefully a sequel.

Like I said, I just found out the Special Edition has way more extras, but before I heard that, I was actually really impressed with the superbit edition. There's an exclusive documentary which takes you into the process of making the movie. It's really interesting to see how the scenes were choreographed, and how hard the actors had to train for all of the stunts. Check out the deleted scenes...there's a great scene with CZJ on horseback that got cut, but showed she mastered horseriding after an initial fear of horses. But the coolest thing is the making of the swordfighting scenes. The scenes were actually choreographed like a dance scene, and each movement had to be precise to work out...so major kudos to the actors. James Horner (who had just come off of scoring Titanic) wanted something totally different, and decided to use background music of flamenco dancers feet tapping behind the swordplay scenes. Which works really well, since the scenes are actually very close to a dance. The tapping feet are also noted in the second sexiest scene of the movie...Elena & Don Alejandro's "spirited" dancing. The music video is also great. I fell in love with that song immediately, and stayed in the theater until it was over, then bought the soundtrack for that, as well as the beautiful score by James Horner. So go buy this DVD...or all 3 for that matter. There's bound to be another edition in a few years anyway...which I'd buy in a heatbeat as well.

I found this film's execution to be uninspired and unexceptional, although there were some aspects to the film that make it stand out from your average sci-fi tale.

First off, the movie's pluses. The supporting cast, including Law, Arkin, and Borgnine was strong, and both Hawke and Thurman were good (too understated though, seemingly by design). The movie also had style. In addition to style, it had some good messages, including anti-discrimination, and threats posed to individual liberty by technological 'advancement'. The most important message was that the human spirit, if strong enough can accomplish virtually anything.

These are certainly admirable themes. The movie just failed to deliver them in a mature and convincing way. Below I outline some of the problems, as I see them (beware of spoilers).

While realism is generally not the goal of science fiction, much of the science and several plot developments here were totally implausible. In terms of the science, the film gives too little allowance to the role of environment in human development; while this approach adds drama, it makes the film patronizingly simplistic. The weak hearts of the two protagonists also had no science fiction basis-it was just a plot device. Some other plot implausibilities: 1) the idea that one could (almost) hide their genetic signature, and 2) that people would no longer pay attention to facial appearances, something evolution has steered us towards recognizing for millennia.

The movie also felt flat; this was clearly the tone the film was going for, but I felt it took it too far. We needed to at minimum feel Vincent's passion for flight, and the couple's romantic passion. While there's no denying there was chemistry between Hawke and Thurman, the performances were too muted. We should have felt Vincent's excitement about his final achievement, but we don't, partly because we have no sense of what he will be doing in space.

Other characters and relationships were too simplistic as well. I know men can be boys, but the paring down of the brothers' relationship to little more than a game of chicken seems too extreme; where was the subtlety and nuance in their-or any of the other- relationship?

Many viewers criticize Gattaca for its implausibility. When the film was released, I recall reading a movie review entitled "You're too smart for Gattaca," which cited the improbability of the hero's success in a society where he is constantly subjected to testing to confirm his genetic "purity" and where the slightest trace of bodily detritus can expose him as an imposter.

I would respectfully submit that such critics have hit upon the central theme of the film without fully realizing it; the sheer implausibility of the hero's success under these conditions is precisely the point, and is what makes the story so powerful and poignant. The story is, after all, intended in part to be a cautionary tale.

In spite of the film's persistent "realistic" emphasis on the physical implausibility of the hero's success, however, it also bears emphasis that the ending, with Vincent rocketing to the heavens, is a genuinely Romantic assertion of faith that innate human intelligence and spirit can overcome bodily defects and limitations.

The ending also has mythological overtones of apotheosis (deification). In this respect, Vincent has heroic antecedents in Hercules and gnostic Christianity. Hercules' divine spirit was taken by the gods into Olympus after the self-inflicted destruction of his body by fire, and after the accomplishment of feats even more implausible than those confronted by Vincent. Similarly, Chirst ascended into heaven after his physical body was destroyed on the cross. Like both, Vincent endures great bodily suffering, but like both he ultimately transcends the physical limitations of the body.

As such, the story by its very design calls upon viewers at once to realize the physical impossibility of the hero's predicament, while at the same time suspending their disbelief in order to have faith in his ability to succeed against the odds. In this way, the story can be viewed as a contemporary and highly stylized variation on age old mythological and religious themes.

The world of Gattaca is one where people are stratified in society by their genetic composition. Racism and classism are things of the past. Those who are bred to be genetically superior are dominant in society compared to those conceived naturally and tethered with the possibilities of a plethora of medical problems.

In this world, Vincent (Hawke) is a person trying to overcome his own DNA by impersonating a genetic superior. In this reality, impersonation isn't just looks... The movie takes great pains to show how appearance has become secondary in identification.

This movie is not the best execution. It has an excellent cast, and the supporting cast tends to run away with the film. Hawke and Thurman give somewhat cold performances, along the lines of the film itself. I think this film's strongest points are an excellent premise (one that is very relevant today with health care becoming increasingly oriented towards risk stratification)and a wealth of supporting cast talent (especially Jude Law, whose performance is stellar, and it's always nice to see Ernest Borgnine in a movie).

This movie is true science fiction, not aliens and space ships and the like. It's sci-fi like Bradbury is sci-fi. It's thinking sci-fi.

As a note, the title Gattaca is derived from the letters GTAC, which stand for the letters used to represent the nucleic acids which make up DNA (Guanine, Thymine, Adenine, and Cytosine).

Foster and Hopkins kick butt here! Their chemistry is amazing. This film was ground breaking and truly shocking. If you haven't seen it, do that now. If you have, revisit it and remind yourself of why it's so great.

A serial killer, known to the media as Buffalo Bill, has kidnapped and skinned several women and cannot be found. A beginner FBI agent, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), is assigned to speak with a brilliant psychopathic psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecktor (Anthony Hopkins), in a mental ward. In doing this, she hopes that he will provide both valuable information regarding his whereabouts and insight on how a serial killer thinks. Soon after her first meeting with Lecktor (overwhelmed by the manipulation she received from him and other inmates), a woman is reportedly missing, and that Buffalo Bill is behind it. This adds to the stress, and Lecktor reaches into Clarice Starling's haunted memories.

A riveting and disturbing psychological thriller that succeeds in most departments. It does not rely as much on blood and gore as it does on generally eerie dialogue. Jodie Foster's character does take a little while to get comfortable with, but her portrayal as a haunted woman is always compelling and unforgettable. It is Anthony Hopkins that delivers the most with his cannibalistic and thought-provoking persona. See it!

Overall rating: 4.8 stars (rounded to 5)

If you like this film, I would also recommend "Se7en".

Rated R for strong language and suggestive dialogue, violence, brief nudity, and mature themes.

This movie is an intense study of a serial killer and the methods used by the FBI to track him. Expert direction, acting, and story make this a superb film.

Very highly recommended.

i loved this movie from beginning to end.my favorite parts,Freddy F'n Four Fingers,the pikey mutt who eats the squeaky toy,Brad Pitts incomprehensible plea for a periwinkle blue trailer for his mum and Dennis Farina's character is the bomb i love this guy! my dvd would only play with the caption on and its a good thing because i couldnt understand a word and of those brits were saying LOL!

Snatch is by far one of my favorite movies. I watched 10 minutes of it and I was hooked, its not only ilarious but has a fight club kind of mind to it. This is a great movie, but don't just take it from me, look at all these 5 star reviews...

This movie is great. This movie is funny. This movie had awsome music. In the grand tradtion of Guy Ritchie films Snatch is a dark comdey about London's underbelly. The story is center around Turkish and Tommy two boxing promoters who want a caravan. The decied (unwisely) to by it from Irish gypies. Brad pitt plays the hard to understand Irish bare-kunckle boxer who rips them of then lays up their boxer. From there all hell breaks loose. The more they try to get out of trouble the more they get into trouble. If you've saw and like Ritchie's first film then this is a must for you. If you haven't seen any of his films but liked any of these films: Ocean's 11, Go, Fear and loathing in Las vegas or Pulp fiction then you'll love this movie.

FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!

I hate to bad-mouth movies, but I will not be able to cease apologizing to my poor friend who I asked to watch this with.

I would prefer getting multiple root canals to having to watch this movie again. It is a rare film that makes me cheer for the protagonist to just freakin' DIE so that, if nothing else, it would end. Bravo.

The people who enjoy this movie are actually lying. They did not enjoy it, but they do not want to be alone in their suffering; therefore, they have given it multiple stars to trick you. Don't let them win. I AM your friend. I wouldn't steer you wrong. If you trust them and watch it, you will end up spending too much money attending film school to try to figure out what the heck that movie actually was.

My name is alcarillo and I am a co-dependent movie watcher.

I saw this in the theater and professed to like it because so many cool undeground movie head said it was a landmark film.

I rented it several times thereafter because it had become a cult classic.

I got the DVD because well, I had to have the special edition with all the cool features, and even though I never really liked this film I had to fork over 50 bucks anyway.

OK, this isn't a terribly bad movie, just over-earnest and very clumsy, nothing more. And while the art direction has Gilliam's unmistakable -- and wonderful -- imprimateur, the execution of the story and the characters (no pun intended) is tiresome.

Yet, I'm supposed to believe that this film -- and the act of it being made -- is some sort of epic myth. That it's a p-ss take on the Great Ruthless Clueless Hollywood Machine; that it's an indictment of Thatcherism and Reaganism. No, it's just a confusing, unrestrained Gilliam mess. He handles "12 Monkeys" much, much better.

It has it's moments: Lowry's encounter with the fearful, but ultimately menacing ventilation repairmen is one of my favorites. So is the fight over the shared desk. But in the end (whichever end you choose: Gilliam's or Hollywood's), I felt cheated in a way. That I was to end up not caring about Jill or Lowry or anyone except, oddly, Jack seemed like the bigger crime committed here (next to the price of this DVD).

So I had to let it go; admit once and for all that no, I don't like "Brazil" in any incarnation. I had to accept that I was indeed sick in my denial. I then took a loss and sold my DVD. At least I saved some shelf space.

If you liked Twelve Monkeys, you must see this film.
I was jaw-dropped and confused at the end of this... and it takes a lot to do that. Involves Government, the future, and perception. If you're a Matrix fan shame on you if you haven't seen this. And prepare...it's twisted and surreal.

This DVD was transfered in a "letterbox" format. In my opinion the result was a VHS LIKE picture quality which was very disapointing. This is the kind of classic special effect extravaganza that deserves way better quality picture and that is what you get when a dvd is transfered in a anamorphic process. This dvd wasn't done properly and the result is a far lower quality picture than I was hoping for. Also disapointing was the fact it doesn't state that it is a "letterbox" presentation. My mistake was buying it without looking here on amazon first toi find out. In my experience, 99.9% of dvds that are non-anamorphic result in a way lower quality of picture.However, this dvd does have alot of extras that will make the hardcore "Abyss" fan happy. The 5.1 audio transfer was very good however it would've been better in DTS.I loved this movie and hope that when or if it is re-released they do it in a anamorphic format to drastically improve the picture quality. On any standard tv the picture quality would be ok but I have a 65in. widescreen tv and even with a progressive dvd player the picture exhibits alot of elements and pixelzation resulting in color loss and a crisp clean presentation. For those that don't understand "anamorphic", when viewing on a standard tv it will be just the black bars at top and bottom, meaning "letterbox". On any projection tv, big screen tv, or especially a widescreen projection television, the letterbox non-anamorphic dvd makes it so the viewer has to "zoom" in to see it correctly, thus resulting in seeing more of the quality of transfer.When in an anamorphic process, the viewer with a large projection tv has the picture automatically set for normal viewing without having to adjust the picture to fit the screen. Thuhs resulting in a better picture transfer for the dvd itself and for the complete presentation. "Letterbox" versions in my opinion are as good (bad) as watching it on a VHS tape like quality picture.Anyways, although this dvd had great features and it is a great movie, the dvd in my opinion is not that great due to the picture quality. But, it is ok enough to watch and not as horrible as alot of other dvds I have seen transfered non-anamorphic. I guess it's worth buying if you can't wait and are a hardcore fan of the movie.If you can wait, I'd find the widescreen vhs tape instead for a cheaper price and get almost the same picture quality if you have a super-vhs player.

It has been an increasing obsession in Hollywood that visual effects are the most important part of a movie and that to draw customers, all you need is a colorful dog-and-pony show. The fact that so many of these efforts bomb - think of such recent duds as The Core or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - is an indication that you can't have a good movie unless you have decent writing. It's not necessary that it be GREAT writing (no one will confuse the Matrix with Shakespeare), but it needs to be at least decent. Otherwise, you have a movie that, despite all its flash and fury, will be little more than another forgettable effort in a ocean of such works. Which leads to The Abyss, a movie that looks good but is offset by poor writing. Only because it is directed by James Cameron - of Terminator and Titanic fame - makes this movie at all noteworthy. But if you disregard its well-known director, you find that this is little better than Wild Wild West or the Avengers (the movies, not the TV shows) were in their times.

The story involves a submarine that is involved in a fatal accident after an encounter with a mysterious object. A rescue crew is sent to retrieve any possible survivors and inspect the damage. The crew is beset with problems, most significantly getting marooned two thousand feet below the ocean surface. While Cold War tensions build above - along with a hurricane - the characters deal with their own problems as well as an alien presence that seems benevolent but has mysterious motives.

The movie looks good, but is riddled with story problems. Even dismissing the scientific inaccuracies (after all, we're not watching this to learn), there are still all sorts of flaws. The first hour is slow and the final portion is corny and preachy. There are implausibilities from the get-go: for example, wouldn't the sub crew have a better knowledge of ocean topography to avoid crashing into an underwater mountain even with the minor distraction of a mystery object and a brief power outage? When things are at the darkest for the characters, there is always a miraculous intervention to save them.

Somehow, despite the many problems, there is enough in this movie to make it exciting in places and if you're willing to not think at all and just go for the ride, you might be entertained. The problem is that you most likely will not be able to turn off your brain; as a result, like a cheap roller coaster ride, you may have had some fun, but when you look back at it later, you will find the experience to have been emptier than it first seemed.

I've always wondered what's "really" underneath all that ocean water that covers three-fourths of the earth's surface. Could there be more than just the critters that adorn my plate when I visit Red Lobster?

Well, I must confess, I just lied: I really don't think about things like that, but James Cameron's handsome film THE ABYSS certainly tweaks at my brain matter and introduces a most interesting story that we humans are not even alone on our own planet when it comes to intelligent life.

Yes, we have drama: a downed nuclear sub deep in the ocean, an underwater oil exploration platform hijacked by the feds to go on a rescue mission, and a Navy SEAL commander just itching to go bonkers. We also have a failed romance suddenly rekindled, even though it's beyond me why anyone would want to light a fire with grouchy engineer Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), but for whatever reason ex-husband Bud Brigman (Ed Harris) does. And then we are treated to magnificent underwater camera shots, high-tech gadgets and machines, and special effects as only James Cameron can paint on celluloid.

As viewers, we are asked to jettison our common sense to the high seas as we watch people swim thousands of feet underwater without protective gear, but that's okay: the assault on disbelief is only beginning. With escalating tensions between the U.S. and the old U.S.S.R. coming to a head, the pesky human race suddenly receives an eye-opening comeuppance by a superior form of intelligent life that comes up from the abyss to paternally warn us to knock it off. Lesson learned, planet saved. I'll have the shrimp scampi with extra sauce.
--D. Mikels

Rushmore, the sophomore effort of brilliant writer/director Wes Anderson is a really good film. I always sound so stupid when I write these reviews, but I just can't help but gush over this stuff that I love. Rushmore, starring Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray, is about a 15-year-old student, Max Fischer, who attends an exclusive prep school who puts all of his time into extra-curricular activities, and meanwhile fails in the academic department. Murray is a depressed tycoon, Blume, who meets Max, and the two form a friendship. However, things turn for the worst when Max falls in love with a teacher and Blume does, too. Their friendship ends...but let's just hope it has a happy ending.

Note: if you like good music, the soundtrack and the original score is excellent--British Invasion. My favorite part of the
movie is when Blume and Max meet and Max says, "How are you?" and Blume replies, "Ah, I'm little bit lonely these days."

It's very simple. Wes Anderson's Rushmore put him in the running for this generation's "guy most likely to save American Cinema". A bold and ambitious follow up to the quirky (but also brilliant) buddy flick Bottle Rocket, Rushmore showed us that a movie can have heart, soul and a generous amount of irony while still making a point in the most original cinematic voice to come along in a long long time. Max Fischer: Brilliant. Bill Murray: still brilliant. Wes Anderson: the new King. Buy this DVD. Oh yeah, and the Criterion extras are worth the extra $20.

This is the unique kind of comedy that seldom gets made. It's smarter than the average broad comedy, so it's not for everyone. Jason Schwartzman is really well cast in this role and Bill Murray is, as always, brilliant.