Consumer Information Movie Reviews

In short, this comemoration of one of our newest National Park properties is a pleasure to own!

Just to warn you, there is some terrible acting in this movie. However, the story is so intruiging that it makes up for it. It's too bad that most mainstream movies out there today follow the same "Hollywood" template and don't make movies like this.

Check it out if you can!

It opens at a crime syndicate, where - in between brutal interviews with the bosses - small-time Munich pimp Franz Walsch (played by Fassbinder) strikes up a friendship with Bruno (Ulli Lommel), another recruit. Relishing his independence, Franz refuses to join the mob. He returns to his prostitute girlfriend Joanna (Hanna Schygulla, one of Fassbinder's greatest actresses). Bruno tracks Franz down for enigmatic reasons: Is it because he already feels drawn to Franz (their unexpressed homoerotic bond is key to the film), or has he been sent by the syndicate - or both? The three go on a small wave of shoplifting and murder. But when Bruno begins planning a bank robbery, Joanna's distrust and jealousy of him cause her to make some arrangements of her own.

Shot in harsh black and white by cinematographer Dietrich Lohmann, Fassbinder designed this film (with Lommel) and edited it, using his frequent pseudonym of none other than Franz Walsch. From the first scene, he establishes the tense visual style (characters trapped by large expanses of blank wall), deliberate pacing, and almost hypnotic performances. These elements work perfectly to express this almost uncanny vision of a world of repressed longing, frustration and, inevitably, violence.

About this picture Fassbinder once said, in a comment which also looks ahead to his later works, "My film isn't supposed to let feelings people already have be neutralized or soaked up; instead, the film should create new feelings.... I'm concerned with having the audience ... examine its own innermost feelings." And he does. For instance, he infuses even simple elements with many thematic and emotional layers, making them complex, even contradictory, yet almost always involving. Take the plot, which I summarized above. On the one hand, it could hardly be more simple. Yet although it is classically constructed (exposition, rising action, climax), it holds many genuine, and purposeful, mysteries of character, not only for the three leads, but minor roles too.

And in terms of cinema history, Fassbinder turns the crime film on its ear. Although he created a visually stunning "traditional" film noir in Gods of the Plague (the sequel to this film), here he eschews all familiar stylistic cues. Instead of ominous shadows, everything is hit with icy-cold light; there is nowhere to hide. Instead of the baroque, sometimes dizzying, design of such 1950s masterpieces as Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly and Welles's Touch of Evil, Fassbinder puts us in a world of intense flatness, with rarely more than two or three planes of action. Ironically, the only places with depth of space are the centers of consumerism - the department store and supermarket - which hilariously provide no impediments to the trio pilfering everything they want.

But most of the film's space is of crushing blankness, from the sequence of Bruno's night drive along Munich's creepy, almost-deserted streets (accompanied only by Peer Raben's haunting score) to, especially, Franz's oppresively bare apartment, where much of the film is set. Fassbinder here brilliantly (and economically, since he had only a US $27,500 budget) uses this visual blankness to convey not only his characters' social status, but their emotional states too. In a strange yet brilliantly insightful way, all of those bare walls - echoing the characters' emptiness and pain - made me care about them even more. I deeply responded to their vulnerability, which was unique for each character yet also a common quality. Though they never talk about their frustrated desires and dreams - and of course that silence adds to the film's power - we see that these are terribly wounded people, with no idea of how to heal themselves. So they act out through robbing and killing - using generic criminal identities provided by Hollywood - even as these victims of society victimize each other, and of course themselves. Fassbinder does not excuse these characters, but he does bring them to life.

I think this film succeeds not only sociologically but artistically, capturing - through narrative, performance, and design - the blank poetry of oppression, and repression. Of course, with his debut Fassbinder also wanted to astonish the world; so he must have been delighted with the near-riot this film caused at the 1969 Berlin Film Festival. Today it still feels fresh, strange, and resonant in its chillingly casual violence and unspoken, sometimes heartbreaking, passion.

"Mass Appeal" and "The World Keeps Turning" are 2 brutal slabs of basically concert/fan footage during touring. Nothing really special but great for thrashin'!

"Suffer The Chldren"...ahh, such a classic in many ND fan's ears. This is basically a pretty good music video, tour/fan footage mixed with eerie images of Roman Catholic churches make it somewhat of a concept video. Very good and very fast!

"Plauge Rages" is by far the best promo video on the Napalm Death DVD. It's more of an actual music video than the later ones I just mentioned. A lot of footage that looks like he cross between an apocalyptic wasteland and mutants tearing at eachother. Very suave!

"Greed Killing"...the "hit" song. This is probably their most mainstream song yet it still carries the energy that Napalm Death hs always had from the beginning. Very well produced and very crystal-clear. More of a Sci-Fi element to the video, but other than that, it still does not beat the "Plague Rages" video.

"Breed To Breath" is the most graphic video on this DVD for it's content. Basically the kind of stuff you would see on the old Faces Of Death seires, or any kind of shockumentary that is obsessed with anthing morbid. Something interesting about this is that this is the UNCUT!, yes, uncut version of the video before it went into the editing process so it would be "friendly" on mind-enslaving, corporate MTV (Don't you just hate censorship?)

Now the pinnacle of this DVD is that is shows very are footage of the classic Napalm Death line-up that included Lee Dorian(Of Cathedral) on vocals, Bill Steer(Carcass...RIP) on guitars, and the blast-beat master himself, Mick Harris. The2 songs included are "Scum" and "You Suffer"...this is history that was in the making people!

Well, I'v think I've sad my 2 cents about this DVD. Overal, this is beyond killer. If you are a Napalm Death fan and haven't gotten the chance to purchase it, WHAT ARE YOU SITTING HERE READIG MY REVIEW FOR? ORDER THS BAD ....!!!! And to all you who are still "skeptical" about such a band such as Napalm Death to make any kind of "real" music for your ears.....prepae for a horrible death!!!

NAPALM DEATH OWNS YOUR SOULS!!!

As the title of my review says, "Death Becomes Her" is a very dark yet hilariously funny movie. Directed by genius Robert Zemeckis (director of the Back to the Future trilogy, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "Contact", and "Forrest Gump"), he gives the movie such an underlying sense of psychological suspense that it's really hard what category to put this movie under.

Is it a comedy?: Yes, "Death Becomes Her" could be called a comedy. But it has a very twisted sort of humor, you'll have to be someone who enjoys all forms of comedy to really enjoy and understand the humor. There is both laugh-out-loud slapstick humor, then there's the dry type of humor which takes a few seconds to really getting you chuckling. But more than anything, the satire and irony of the story is so well imbedded into the plot that there's really no specific part you can pinpoint as the funniest part of the movie. When the movie finished, my parents and I stopped the movie, there was a brief pause, THEN we started howling with laughter! It's the truth, really! No, it wasn't because it was so awful or stupid (some parts were) but because it's not until AFTER the movie that the satire of the film really hits you.

Is it horror?: Yes, there are some parts which you could describe the movie as being under the horror genre. There's the whole 'haunted, creepy, gothic mansion' scene, and one of the themes of the movie is about 'death'.

Is it a drama?: Strangely enough, there is a sense of drama in the story. The story touches upon the topics of death and the dream of wanting to 'live forever and retain your youth'. This is very well expressed through the main actresses and actor of the movie. I mean, what will your choice been when given a chance to be able to live forever? The suspense towards the end when one of the characters must decide is well executed.

But more than anything, it's not just the story of the movie that really gets you, it's the fact that the actors do such an outstanding job with their characters. Meryl Streep is simply fantastic and she handles the dark side of her character very well. Goldie Hawn is also fantastic, can you imagine her as a fat, depressed, and ugly woman? Well, watch this movie to see her handle the role with ease. And Bruce Willis, you would never imagine seeing him in this kind of movie, but he is just GREAT! He plays the character plagued by two very 'obsessed' woman very well, and he's 'kind of' the 'hero' of the film.

As others have also mentioned, the effects of the movie are brilliantly put to the screen. I can't give away much of the story, but check out how they accomplish getting Meryl Streep's character to 'get up and about' after being pushed a flight of stairs and having her neck broken. Weird...

Anyway, though a brilliant film, I strongly suggest that people would borrow before getting this movie to add to their collection. Some people might not be able to appreciate or understand the movie enough to enjoy it's twisted look at 'life after death'.