imdb_id
stringlengths 9
9
| title
stringlengths 1
92
| plot_synopsis
stringlengths 442
64k
| tags
stringlengths 4
255
| split
stringclasses 1
value | synopsis_source
stringclasses 2
values | review
stringlengths 119
19k
⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
tt0057603 | I tre volti della paura | Note: this synopsis is for the orginal Italian release with the segments in this certain order.Boris Karloff introduces three horror tales of the macabre and the supernatural known as the 'Three Faces of Fear'.THE TELEPHONERosy (Michele Mercier) is an attractive, high-priced Parisian call-girl who returns to her spacious, basement apartment after an evening out when she immediately gets beset by a series of strange phone calls. The caller soon identified himself as Frank, her ex-pimp who has recently escaped from prison. Rosy is terrified for it was her testimony that landed the man in jail. Looking for solace, Rosy phones her lesbian lover Mary (Lynda Alfonsi). The two women have been estranged for some time, but Rosy is certain that she is the only one who can help her. Mary agrees to come over that night. Seconds later, Frank calls again, promising that no matter who she calls for protection, he will have his revenge. Unknown to Rosy, Mary is the caller impersonating Frank. Marry arrives at Rosy's apartment soon after, and does her best to calm Rosy's nerves. She gives the panic-struck woman a tranquillizer and puts her to bed.Later that night as Rosy sleeps, Mary gets up out of bed, and pens a note of confession: she was the one making the strange phone calls when she learned of Franks escape from prison. Knowing that Rosy would call on her for help, she explains that she felt it was her way of coming back into her life after their breakup. While she is busy writing, she fails to notice an intruder in the apartment. This time it is Frank, for real. He creeps up behind Mary and strangles her to death with one of Rosys nylon stockings. The sound of the struggle awaken Rosy and she gasps in fright. The murderous pimp realizes that he just killed the wrong woman, and slowly makes his way to Rosy's bed. However, earlier that night, Rosy had placed a butcher knife under her pillow at Mary's suggestion. Rosy seizes the knife and stabs Frank with it as he's beginning to strangle her. Rosy drops the knife and breaks down in hysteria, surrounded by the two corpses of her former lovers.THE WURDALAKIn 19th Century Russia, Vladimir D'Urfe is a young nobleman on a long trip. During the course of his journey, he finds a beheaded corpse with a knife plunged into its heart. He withdraws the blade and takes it as a souvenir.Later that night, Vladimir stops at a small rural cottage to ask for shelter. He notices several daggers hanging up on one of the walls, and a vacant space that happens to fit the one he has discovered. Vladimir is surprised by the entrance of Giorgio (Glauco Onorato), who explains that the knife belongs to his father, who has not been seen for five days. Giorgio offers a room to the young count, and subsequently introduces him to the rest of the family: his wife (Rika Dialina), their young son Ivan, Giorgio's younger brother Pietro (Massimo Righi), and sister Sdenka (Susy Anderson). It subsequently transpires that they are eagerly anticipating the arrival of their father, Gorcha, as well as the reason for his absence: he has gone to do battle with the outlaw and dreaded wurdalak Ali Beg. Vladimir is confused by the term, and Sdenka explains that a wurdalak is a walking cadaver who feeds on the blood of the living, preferably close friends and family members. Giorgio and Pietro are certain that the corpse Vladimir had discovered is that of Ali Beg, but also realize that there is a strong possibility that their father has been infected by the blood curse too. They warn the count to leave, but he decides to stay and await the old mans return.At the stroke of midnight, Gorcha (Boris Karloff) returns to the cottage. His sour demeanor and unkempt appearance bode the worse, and the two brothers are torn: they realize that it is their duty to kill Gorcha before he feeds on the family, but their love for him makes it difficult to reach a decision. Later that night, both Ivan and Pietro are attacked by Gorcha who drains them of blood, and then flees the cottage. Giorgio stakes and beheads Pietro to prevent him from reviving as a wurdalak. But he is prevented from doing so to Ivan when his wife threatens to commit suicide. Reluntantly, he agrees to bury the child without taking the necessary precautions.That same night, the child rises from his grave and begs to be invited into the cottage. The mother runs to her son's aid, stabbing Giorgio when he attempts to stop her, only to be greeted at the front door by Gorcha. The old man bits and infects his daughter-in-law, who then does the same for her husband. Vladimir and Sdenka flee from the cottage and go on the run and hide out in the ruins of an abandoned cathedral as dawn breaks. Vladimir is optimistic that a long and happy life lies with them. But Sdenka is reluctant to relinquish her family ties. She believes that she is meant to stay with the family.Sdenka's fears about her family are confirmed when that evening, Gorcha and her siblings show up at the abandoned Abby. As Vladimir sleeps, Sdenka is lured into their loving arms where they bite to death. Awakened by her screams, Vladimir rushes to her aid, but the family has already taken her home, forcing the lover to follow suite. The young nobleman finds her, lying motionless on her bed. Sdenka awakens, and a distinct change is visible on her face. No longer caring, Vladimir embraces her, and she bites and infects him too.THE DROP OF WATERIn Victorian London, England, Nurse Helen Chester (Jacqueline Pierreux) is called to a large house to prepare the corpse of an elderly medium for her burial. As she dressed the body, she notices an elaborate diamond ring on its finger. Tempted by greed, Nurse Chester steals it. As she does, a glass tips over, and drops of water begin to splash on the floor. She is also assailed by a fly, no doubt attracted by the odor of the body. Unsettled but pleased by her acquisition, she finishes the job and returns home to her small East End flat.After returning home, Nurse Chester is assailed by strange events. The buzzing fly returns and continues to pester her. Then the lights in her apartment go out, and the sounds of the dripping water continues with maddening regularity. She sees the old womans corpse lying on her bed, and coming towards her. The terrified woman begs for forgiveness, but she ultimately strangles herself, imaging that the medium's hands are gripping her throat.The next morning, the concierge (Harriet White Medin) discovers Nurse Chester's body and calls the police. The investigator on the scene (Gustavo de Nardo) quickly concludes that its a simple case and that Nurse Chester "died of fright". The pathologist arrives on the scene to examine the body before it's taken away and he notes that the only sign of violence is a small bruise on her left finger, mostly likely caused when someone pried a ring from her finger. As the doctor makes this observation, the concierge appears distressed, as she has apparently took the ring from the dead Nurse Chester, and is further distracted by the sound of a fly swooping about in the air....Boris Karloff makes a final appearance as Gorcha riding on his horse as he concludes the three tales of fear and tells the viewers to be careful while walking home at night for ghosts and vampires have no fear. The image pulls back to actually reveal him sitting on a prop fake horse with a camera crew and various crewmen moving branches around to simulate the scene of riding through the forest from the Wurdalak segment. | cult, horror, gothic, murder, atmospheric | train | imdb | This terrifying film plenty of vampires,weird deeds and murders is formed by three stories proceeded in some memorably horrific set-pieces: 1) The telephone by author Snyder : A prostitute(Michele Mercier) terrorized in her flat by phone calls from a broken-out inmate(Milo Quesada) receives visit her lover(Lidia Alfonsi).
3)The drop of water by Chekhov: In the early 1900s, a nurse(Jacqueline Pierreux, mother of actor Jean Pierre Leaud, 400 blows) steals a ring from a medium dead and she seeks avenge, then a ghastly specter arises, exacting cruel revenge for past robbery.Bava's second great hit(the first was Black Sunday or Mask of the demon) surprisingly realized with startling visual content and well scripted by Marcello Fondato and Albert Bevilacqua.
In any case, this anthology is a classic of its kind."Drop of Water" (based on a story by Checkov) is a chilling tale of a nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux) who gets her just desserts after stealing a diamond ring from the hideous-looking corpse of a psychic.
The most personal story of Mario Bava in this anthology.Boris Kalfoff gives his best performance in a horror film since playing the creature in Frankenstein(1931) and Bride of Frankenstein(1933).
The best film Bava ever made is Black Sabbath.After a colourful and campy introduction by the great Boris Karloff, we move straight into The Telephone.
The Wurdulak, featuring a ghastly Boris Karloff in one of his best roles, and A Drop of Water, with Jacqueline Pierreux in the role of a greedy nurse, are both the epitome of Mario Bava's Gothic style in colour.What makes Black Sabbath so vibrant and captivating is the use of colour in lighting.
"Tre volti della paura " is a movie made up of three sketches,linked by Boris Karloff's comments -he plays the lead in the second segment - and all dealing with death following a logical progression:fear of death in the first sketch,some kind of "night of the living dead"cum vampires in the second one and terror around a dead woman in the third.Mario Bava did not need any special effects that mar so many horror films today:his baroque settings (Michele Mercier's flat in the first sketch,the countess's Gothic mansion in the third,and the lunar landscapes in the middle one),his knowing lighting effects,his color research,his incredibly effective use of the depth of field (visually stunning in the final segment)are as impressive today as they were forty years ago and were a strong influence on other Italian directors such as Dario Argento.Worth the price of admission..
the second is the best , very atmospheric and contains a powerful scary performance from Boris Karloff who plays the lead vampire for the only time in his career and this role is one of his best.The last story is short but creepy and features the most scary corpse you'll ever see in a film.This is easily director Mario Bava's best film.only a silly last scene with Karloff dents it a little..
As an anthology of supernatural horror tales, each directed by Mario Bava and introduced by Boris Karloff, 'Black Sabbath' is a film with a lot of promise.
Excellent horror anthology film from Mario Bava with three stories as well as linking segments with Boris Karloff.
Boris Karloff hosts these three tales of terror, and stars in the middle one, 'The Wurdalak', which is the closest in style to Bava's horror classic 'Black Sunday' or Roger Corman's Poe movies of the same period.
Even when I wasn't at least a little scared I couldn't take my eyes off of everything so wonderful in the technical sense- the variety and careful choosing of lights, the lens choice or its zoom in, the methodical dolly to a doorknob or a corpse's face.Ultimately, Black Sabbath should appeal to any serious fan of classic horror fare, and even if it isn't very great it's a fine example of what can be done when a director cares about craft and atmosphere along with story.
However, even in spite of this, there are a number of subtle surface similarities that we can glean from the presentation, including Bava's great use of confinement (again, reminiscent of The Girl Who Knew Too Much, especially in the first and third stories, The Telephone and The Drop of Water), and the subtle way in which he manages to make his characters morally responsible for their own potential downfall.Although the desire amongst fans of Bava's work to choose one story over another will always be there, it is impossible for me to pick a favourite; with the three stories essentially coming together to form a pure master class in horror cinema and a true testament to Bava's genius, not only as a one of the greatest genre filmmakers of the late twentieth century, but as one of the greatest Italian filmmakers of his generation.
The opening and closing scenes - with lead star of the second segment, Boris Karloff acting as the guide to the film - is again filled with a bold visual imagination and the director's typically tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, including the fairly radical final shot, in which Bava breaks the fourth wall and deconstructs the film in a way that is audacious, to say the least.
"Black Sabbath" is, as far as I can tell, the only horror anthology film Mario Bava made.The movie features three stories, as they generally do, introduced by none other than Boris Karloff, who also acts in the second part.The first story, "The Telephone", is about a beautiful woman receiving threatening calls that always start sexual and then turn threatening.
Seeing it again in the original Italian version on DVD was something of a disappointment, though it was fun seeing the film in it's original form."The Telephone," always the weakest of the three tales, is more interesting now with the elimination of the silly supernatural aspect tacked on by AIP, and the more obvious lesbian relationship between the two women."The Wurdelak" has some very chilling and atmospheric sections(love the shots of the vampires looking through the window at the end!), but the acting is more laughably wooden here than in the other two tales - Karloff excepted even dubbed in Italian - and Susy Anderson's eye make-up is awfully heavy for the character of a peasant girl."The Drop of Water" remains the best of the tales - the only one that is truly scary from start to finish.
BLACK SABBATH is a fantasy horror omnibus that shows three different faces of horror.A trio of atmospheric horror tales about: A woman, who is terrorized in her apartment by phone calls from a man from her past; a count in the early 1800s who stumbles upon a family in the countryside trying to destroy a particularly vicious line of vampires in order to save his love and a nurse who makes a wrong decision while preparing the corpse of an elderly medium who died during a seance.A different atmosphere, eerie sounds and changes of rhythm adorn all three stories.A object, around which swirl thematic and human factors, is at the center of the first story.
Typical with anthology films, the stories also vary in quality, which may have led to them being shuffled around and even altered with the American version (which also omitted Karloff's introduction), but this is a review for the original Italian version, which begins with the giallo 'The Telephone'.Rosy (Michele Mercier) is a high-class call-girl in Paris, who gets home one night to be plagued with threatening phone calls by a man claiming to be watching everything she does.
Black Sabbath or I tre volti della paura are both compelling versions of Mario Bava's three tale feature film with Boris Karloff as host.
THREE FACES OF FEAR (aka BLACK SABBATH) is one of the great anthology horror films of all time starring Boris Karloff as the host connecting three stories.
The third and final tale (also the best) is set in the early 1900s, where a nurse (Jacqueline Pierroux) steals a ring from a corpse and gets one of those famous stormy night revenges.The Italian title for this film translates to THREE FACES OF FEAR, and it pretty much describes the whole thing: Three different stories with different themes.
And that's exactly what the penultimate shot, what the dead woman's look, what many weird psychedelic visual effects suggest, Mario Bava had fun making this film, and the film is fun, and I'll never believe that there's not a fun side behind the appeal of horror movies."The Three Faces of Fear" is not perfect but it's got style, atmosphere and a sense of self- derision that I'm sure inspired Tarantino, more than the three-part structure.
Hosted by Boris Karloff, three tales of supernatural horror and terror are presented.The good Stories: The Drop of Water-Called to a remote house, a caregiver asked to prep a body for an upcoming ceremony incurs the supernatural wrath of the owner's spirit when she steals the dead woman's prized ring for herself.
Released in 1963 - This fairly taut and intense little trilogy of terror, from the famed Italian director of horror & suspense, Mario Bava, was actually surprisingly better than I thought it would be.I would never say that Black Sabbath was in any way great, but, its 3 simple and straight-forward stories of a somewhat frightening nature, were very effective and certainly kept this viewer interested, and, yes, sometimes perched on the very edge of my seat.Black Sabbath's brief, opening sequence featured veteran, American actor, Boris Karloff (76 at the time), who, in his usual sinister fashion, delivered a very tongue-in-cheek introduction to the horrors that lay in store for the viewer within this film's next 90 minutes.I think that for anyone to get any real enjoyment out of Black Sabbath's brand of horror they must keep in mind that this picture was clearly a product of the early 1960s.
If one were to unfairly compare it to horror movies of today then they would only find themselves picking this picture to pieces and being left greatly disappointed in the long run.The 3 stories presented in Black Sabbath are - "The Telephone" - A modern-day tale where a young, Parisian call-girl is repeatedly harassed by phone calls from a man who makes serious threats to kill her."The Wurdulak" - A 19th Century tale of vampirism, where a family, living on a lonely farm, are menaced by an evil presence which threatens to destroy them all."The Drop of Water" - Set in Victorian London, this is the best tale of the trilogy.
Trio of macabre terror tales from Italian Horror Master Mario Bava, with the great Boris Karloff opening and closing the anthology.
Recently getting the wonderful chance to chair IMDb's Indian Cinema board's Film Club,I began to think about what would be the most suitable choice as an intro to fellow IMDb'ers to the world of the Giallo.Not wanting to go for a gialli that was too gory,I suddenly remembered hearing a year or so ago about a story in Mario Bava's anthology film Black Sabbath that is credited as being the first ever,colour Giallo.Searching round on online,I was happy to discover,that despite the Italian Uncut version sadly not being on the site,the US cut, (which along with adding an Eng dub and a new score,also changed the order of the stories to: 3,1 and 2,features some additional,extended intros directed by co-writer Salvatore Billlitteri,and also cut out a good amount of the lesbian subtext scenes,and the huge "twist" featured in the Italian cut of "The Telephone")had luckily been fully uploaded,which would hopefully act as a good entrance to the atmospheric world of Mario Bava.The plots: Part 1:The Drop of Water- Settaling in for a relaxing night in,nurse Helen Chester receives an urgent phone come,requesting her to go to a house right away,to prepare a body to be picked up by the undertaker's later that night.Arriving to the house frustrated due to her night now being completely ruined,Chester is met by the concierge of the house,who starts warning her about dealing with the body,due to the –now deceased being a powerful medium.Ignoring the concierge's superstition's nonsense,Helen beings getting the body ready for the undertaker.As she starts to do the "finishing touches" on the corpse,Helen notices that the "medium" is wearing a strange looking ring.Finding herself weirdly transfixed by the object,Chester quietly steals the ring,knowing that with the owner of the ring now being dead,there is absolutely no one who can take it back from her.Part 2:The Telephone-Returning to her apartment after a night out,a call girl called Rosy begins to get set for bed.Suddenly,Rosy's telephone starts to ring.Hearing no sound at all coming from the caller,Rosy starts to think that it must just be a wrong number,until she is given the shock of her life,when a voice comes on the phone claiming to be her dead pimp/boyfriend Frank,who tells Rosy that she can never getaway,and goes into detail about what she is wearing at that minute.Desperate for help,Rosy franticly calls her friend/lover Mary over.Arriving to the apartment,Mary quickly calms Rosy's nerves down by telling her that "Frank's voice" will not get anywhere past that phone tonight.Part 3:The Wurdalk-Riding on his horse to get back home,Vampire slayer Count Vladimir Durfe suddenly spots the laying corpse of a beheaded Vampire.Getting close to the body,Durfe discovers that a Bowie knife which was used to kill it has been left stabbed into its heart.Taking the knife and the body to show others what he has found.Vladimir continues his journey,until he stops at a small rural cottage to rest for the night.
Entering the cottage,Durfe is met by one of the owners of the building called Giorgio.Showing the knife,Vladimir gets completely caught by surprise,when Giorgio shows him that the knife belongs to his Vampire killing father,who has been " missing" for the last 5 days
View on the film:Whilst the screenplay by Mario Bava,Alberto Bevilacqua,F.G. Snyder and Marcello Fondato does make each of the three stories its own entity,thematic themes are cleverly used to build an underlying connection,with objects such as a ring,a red telephone, (a cheeky reference to the popular Telefoni Bianchi movies of the 30's) and a Bowie knife (a reference to a weapon used to kill Dracula in Brian Stoker's novel) being shown as materialistic objects,which leads to the characters getting involved in deadly events that they (mainly) could easily have avoided.Along with the physical theme,director Mario Bava also brilliantly uses an audio thematic theme in each of the stories,from Chester being unable to stop the sound of a dripping tap,to Rosy hearing a bodiless voice on the phone and the residents of the cottage being kept up by the howls from a dog,who like the tap and the voice is out in the wilderness,haunting the closed in environment that the stories take place in.Despite the section having large sections torn from its bone,The Telephone is still able to be a terrific,tense mini- Giallo,thanks to the performance of the ravishing, Michele Mercier,who uses the near one-woman show to slowly build an atmospheric sense of paranoia,as Rosy finds the voice worryingly getting deep into her head,despite her brightly lit, high-class apartment having the appearance of keeping any darkness at bay from entering the building.For the great look of The Drop of Water,Bava showers the story with dripping colours to create a claustrophobic feeling to the plot,which suggest that Nurse Helen Chester's (played by the charming,late Jacqueline Pierreux) own growing fears may get to her before the "dead medium" makes a less than welcomed comeback.Sending the film out on a creepy,intently atmospheric mood,Bava impressively uses the setting of The Wurdalak to create a strong,almost Horror-Western feel,as Vladimir and the other residents of the cottage find themselves trapped by Vamp who wants to make sure that things stay in the family.Along with the eye- catching,heavy breathing performance by the stunning Suzy Anderson,Boris Karloff gives an amazing performance as the horrifying "lost father" Gorca.Along with unexpectedly making the appearance and behaviour of Gorca be possibly the only faithful take on Brian Stoker's original,final description of Dracula,Karloff makes sure that Gorca does not stand in any dark shadow,by showing that Gorca will use all of his family ties to quench his thirst,which leads to this being a gripping,constantly atmospheric and chilling Sabbath that you will never forget attending..
Black Sabbath (1963) - The Good, the Bad and the Cinematic BeautySynopsis: A trio of Italian cinema giallo/horror shorts: "Il Telefono" - the story of a woman driven to madness by disturbing phone calls, "I Wurdelak" - a period piece of a family driven to destruction by a vampire-like being, "La Goccia d' Acqua" - translated as a "A Drop of Water", it centers around a nurse who steals a ring from a corpse who comes back for revenge.The Good: A beautifully crafted set of films that each show unique qualities, yet somehow feel cohesive.
Best segment of the film, it looks stylish and eerie, just like The Drop of water, a ghost story also set in 19th century, about the woman who steals the ring of the dead medium, with the huge price..
I Tre Volti della Paura, or Black Sabbath as it was retitled by AIP for English speaking audiences, is hosted by the one & only Boris Karloff who introduces three ghastly tales...First up is 'The Drop of Water' where a nurse named Helen Corey (Jacqueline Pierreux) receives a phone call late one stormy night from a maid (Milly Monti) whose mistress has died...Then it's 'The Telephone' where a young attractive woman named Rosy (Michele Mercier) starts to receive frightening phone calls from her ex-boyfriend, problem is he's been dead for months...Finally it's 'The Wurdalak' which is about a man named Vladimir (Mark Damon) who encounters a dead body & seeks assistance in a nearby house but will eventually wish he hadn't...This Italian, French & American co-production was co-written & directed by Mario Bava & I Tre Volti della Paura is a good solid horror film although I didn't think it was the absolute masterpiece many seem to think it is. |
tt1733125 | Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness | Two thousand years ago, Nhagruul the Foul, a sorcerer who reveled in corrupting the innocent and the spread of despair, neared the end of his mortal days and was dismayed. Consumed by hatred for the living, Nhagruul sold his soul to the demon Lords of the abyss so that his malign spirit would survive. In an excruciating ritual, Nhagrulls skin was flayed into pages, his bones hammered into a cover, and his diseased blood became the ink to pen a book most vile. Creatures vile and depraved rose from every pit and unclean barrow to partake in the fever of destruction. The kingdoms of Karkoth were consumed by this plague of evil until an order of holy warriors arose from the ashes. The Knights of the New Sun swore an oath to resurrect hope in the land. The purity of their hearts was so great that Pelor, the God of Light, gave the Knights powerful amulets with which to channel his power. Transcendent with divine might, the Knights of the New Sun pierced the shadow that had darkened the land for twelve hundred years and cast it asunder. But not all were awed by their glory. The disciples of Nhagruul disassembled the book and bribed three greedy souls to hide the pieces until they could be retrieved. The ink was discovered and destroyed but, despite years of searching, the cover and pages were never found. Peace ruled the land for centuries and the Knights got lost in the light of their own glory. As memory of the awful events faded so did the power of servants of Pelor. They unwittingly abandoned themselves in the incorrect belief that the Book of Vile Darkness could never again be made whole.Now, the remaining pieces have been discovered, and an ancient evil is attempting to bring them together and restore the relic and the evil it brought. But at the same time a potential new paladin has been named to the Knights of the New Sun to attempt to renew their power to fight this evil. But, to do so, he may need to go against all that he has held dear, risking more that just his own soul in his quest to destroy the evil that surrounds him at every turn. | violence | train | imdb | and for what it is, it is pretty good.Don't expect Oscar winning performances, but most of the acting is acceptable and some is actually pretty good; the fellow playing the Vermin Lord does a very good job of quietly understated evil.The effects and creatures are comparable to D&D:WOTDG (the second movie), but it moves faster and there is more action, and more variety in spell use with better imagery, and better fight scenes.Gladly lacking the first D&D movie's lame humor and misplaced modern sensibilities about egalitarianism, and the slow-paced and stilted wordiness and failed melodrama of the second, this one is a bit more stark and grim than the others, with more actual fighting.It is also more in line with actual D&D material, 3.5e I believe though the version I am more familiar with was new 30 years ago.
Alright, given the reviews and the ratings on IMDb for "Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness" then I was fearing the worst of this movie, especially because the prior two movies were not all that great.
(Should be noted that I found the second movie "Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God" better than the first movie.) Despite the critique, bad reviews and overall poor ratings, I decided to give it a go because I am a big Dungeons & Dragons fan (been playing it for some 26 years or so), and if bad came to worse I could always turn it off and find something else to watch.And having seen it now, I honestly do not understand the critique, the bad reviews and the general moaning there has been about this movie, because in my opinion, "Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness" picks up the prior two movies, slaps them around and then shows what D&D should be like.In this third movie we follow a party of less than lawful-good characters here in a party out seeking the three parts of the Book of Vile Darkness.
Sure, there was the devoted of Pelor (the good guy in the movie) thrown into the midst of a vermin lord, goliath, assassin and a sorceress - all of whom are less than your average lawful-good hero.
So as a D&D player it was such a blast to have a group of anti-heroes starring as the main characters for a change.This movie is a blast to anyone well traversed in the D&D universe, because there are some really great aspects to the world; such as you have your iconic D&D items - a vorpal sword (although it is beyond me why it wasn't put to use), a bag of holding, and of course the holy symbol of Pelor.
Personally I was well in favor of the vermin lord, because it was nailed right on the money as it is described in the actual Book of Vile Darkness (D&D 3.5 accessory as published by Wizards of the Coast).The effects in the movie were actually quite alright and worked out well enough.
And for fans of the D&D world (and those who own the Book of Vile Darkness 3.5 accessory) there are some really nice touches in terms of spells being used in the movie; spells that were taken right out of the rulebook.Storywise, well the movie was pretty straight forward, fairly much like participating at a D&D gaming session, so it was alright.
The story was somewhat predictable though, but still it was adequate entertainment.Sure, "Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness" might not have had the same kind of budget and famous Hollywood actors to use as baiting in people, but the ones that they did hire for the roles did adequate jobs with their roles.
I will say that these creatures all looked alright in my opinion and worked out well enough.If you are a fan of the Dungeons & Dragons game and were discouraged by the previous two movies which were, well, let's just say below average, then you definitely have to treat yourself to "Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness" because it is actually quite good.I know this review is written with my pro-D&D goggles on, but I just don't see there is any leverage to the complaining and moaning that the movie has been getting.
The plot is OK, love story is more realistic than in many many other movies, even the characters are believable.
I usually find many annoyances in films, even the best ones, but whats very weird, nothing really annoyed me in this one.I have played D&D games, and many other RPGs, but I don't think thats of any relevance, this is a decent movie for all who like these sword & magic fantasy flicks.For a low budget movie, even the CG effects are very successful.
And there's some more eye candy in the form of a Gothic hot chick ;D I had somewhat low expectations for this one, and I was very positively surprised, so 8/10 for this one, and thanks to other who have commented, wouldn't have watched it without you.If you are into this kind of movies, try it, you might be surprised too....
The tone was a much darker take than previous entries in the serious, and that turns out to be a vast improvement.I am puzzled by a lot of online reviews / summaries of this film, which describe the plot inaccurately, and even list characters and actors that are not in the movie.
Keep in mind it's a low budget movie but its much better than the 2 previous ones.You can actually see people LOOT the corpses after battles and the spells used are truly recognizable if you have played DnD 3.5As i said don't expect anything special but for a fan of this genre that's into Dungeons and Dragons universe it will be an enjoyable movie.Acting is more than OK on a couple of Characters but pretty bad on the main guy.For the people unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons the rating should be like 2/10 so don't waste your time..
It is a shame that market constraints for this kind of film are so limited, I would love to see this at a longer running time, and explore these themes as novels are able to do, but given the constraints this production does create an intriguing moral predicament for this knight, and maintains an interesting atmosphere that adds much resonance to the story.
I had very poor expectations going in, but was pleasantly surprised by a story that focus on characters that aren't your normal "do good" heroes.The acting is okay and the effects are on par with the effects you can see on new television shows.
The script is better than many of the big budget movies of today, but it's not Lord of the rings.
The story is somewhat predictable, but enjoyably.A few nods to the game can be found throughout the movie, but you could easily get the same enjoyment out of the plot without having ever played the game.If you like fantasy give it try..
Having followed the Book of Vile Darkness promotion a year past, I knew that the movie was in production for quite some time, along with its source material (the D&D 4th Edition Book of Vile Darkness for those wondering), and there are several references in the movie that will appear more than anything as name dropping or inside jokes - which can be a good thing, provided that you know what is being referred to.
The inclusion of shadar-kai and a goliath instead of the typical elves and dwarfs is also a nice touch, and in line with this, it breaks with many typical fantasy tropes.As mentioned above, knowing the source material beforehand can be a boon in the case of this movie, especially since the Book of Vile Darkness in its previous edition was suited only for people aged 18+ because of its...
well, "vile" contents, along with a focus on playing evil characters that is unheard of elsewhere in typical D&D, where the player characters are usually the heroes - and the main character in the movie faces some of the same moral quandaries that are mentioned directly in the D&D source material.
There is also the fact that the main characters mention a red dragon at some point in the movie that is clearly not a dragon, but a Nhagruul Dragonspawn, and is thus again tied to the Book of Vile Darkness supplement for D&D 4th Edition.
It is strange that this isn't mentioned at all in the movie, however.The acting isn't the best that one could want (maybe except for the Vermin Lord, who fits the bill perfectly) and some of the lines are somewhat illegible at times, but I would praise the story in that it both manages to feel somewhat "realistic" (in-universe at least) while staying interesting and entertaining.All in all, I would consider this movie a success, in that it was both entertaining and thought- provoking, the latter of which especially with the aforementioned moral quandaries in mind.
I have read a number of reviews of this movie that seem to judge the film simply by its limited budget.Personally, I have watched this move over and over several times and I rate it the best of the three.
That speech has resonated with me since I first saw the film, and you to may also find yourself reflecting of how many of the under-people you would like to liberate from the celestial grind wheel.If you're a fan of this genre (fantasy) you will very much enjoy this film which benefits greatly from being set in an evil-aligned adventuring party.Strongly recommended 'over a beer' viewing..
Each party member is a different race, the enemies are not well defined, and magic items mentioned are either not shown off (vorpal sword) or seemed to be added for one scene-- which starts to bog down the movie.The dialog is fairly bad, the assassin is less "the professional" and more standard socio-path.
It looks like a child's Halloween attempt.The movie is better than the first, and about even with the second as they have different faults..
I'm giving it a pretty high rating because they kept this thing together and I was surprised as it's my favourite of the three Dungeon and Dragons films.
It is a fantasy B-movie and it does have some flaws but as for as taking the biggest nerd game of all time and making into a fun and enjoyable file...
It also helps if you fall in love with Eleanor Gecks 10 minutes into the film :pMy main point here is that I was expecting to see a very bad film but after I started watching this on my phone there was never really a dull moment.
As one can expect from a less-than-a-mediocre direct to video low budget sequel filmed in Bulgaria, this one aims to cash in on the popularity of the Dungeons and Dragons title.
I watched it expecting cheesy fantasy action with a dumb plot, bad acting, and blatant appeals to fans of the game like Wrath of the Dragon God did.
It started with a Hollywood crapfest, filled with special effects, comic relief and known actors, but having no story, continued with something that felt more like a D&D plot, but was acted abysmally and finished with this, which has a good storyline, interesting characters and is truly entertaining.
But hold your horses, not all is rosy.The first thing that you notice is that the plot is complex: characters are evolving constantly, there is no clear delimitation of good and evil and there are several chapters of the story that are each strong on their own.
He totally acted and looked like a young William Sadler in this.Of course, there are some painfully bad scenes as well, however not that many.
The spells were original and entertaining, the fights were few, but decent, and again, there was a story and characters that I could feel and root for.
The budget was low, but if Grayson and his dad would have been played by better actors, I think this would have been a good movie, one that people would have been glad to see and recommend.
The "knight" of the group, Grayson I could not truly get behind due to his immaturity throughout most of the quest (nothing personal against the actor himself, his character was just simply annoying).
Overall, The Book of Vile Darkness has seemingly pleased most D&D fans with its effort to return to the essence of the D&D world and all its game-play and story-telling elements.
Fans of fantasy and adventure movies may well enjoy watching this every now and then for a change of pace..
By far and away the best of the Dungeons & Dragons movies, and the only one that is halfway decent.
That is saying a lot though, because the first Dungeons & Dragons gets my vote as the worst fantasy film ever made and among the worst movies in general; the second is a little better but is rather mediocre.
Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness isn't great but compared to the previous movies it's certainly watchable.
There are definitely far cheaper-looking movies than Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness, the costumes are decent enough and the scenery is great.
The music is dynamic enough and at least has a pace to it, the characters have a likability generally(they're not too bland and none of them are anywhere near as irritating as the one played by Marlon Wayans in the first), and the dialogue while ropey at times is still an improvement over the script-writing of the previous two movies, being thought-out and cohesive and there is little misplaced humour or tedious melodrama.
What Dungeons and Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness also has over its predecessors is that it is more loyal in spirit to what makes Dungeons & Dragons as an overall franchise work so well with the odd referencing, which the first two movies did not.
Overall, the definitive Dungeons & Dragons is yet to be made and this movie doesn't really do the franchise justice, but it is not a bad movie at all and a significant improvement over the second and especially the first.
The plot and formula is very loyal to the D & D world, and it was cute to see some stereotypical elements being thrown in :) The lead actor makes for a perfect Paladin, and the rest of the characters portrayed their D & D roles quite faultlessly.The ending could have been better and could actually have been engineered for a sequel..
The acting is surprisingly decent, given the budget, but it's still pretty terrible.
well, as stated, I think they simply used the campaign notes instead of writing an actual script.This movie has a lot of "so bad it's good" value to it, especially if you're a gamer.
I liked this movie a lot more then I thought I would.
I've been a D&D enthusiast for many years so I might be somewhat biased but trust me, like you, I think I have an idea of what makes a bad movie.
This movie has a great story, a surprisingly dark tone, and a solid cast.
Using CGI to off set the terrible plot, bad acting, and poor non-CGI effects this movie is not very good.
Pretty Good, especially compared to the Previous Movies.
Still, the movie was good, if not great.
The first Dungeons and Dragons movie was completely embarrassing.
The second was a decent movie, although the characters seemed a bit generic.
Although a bit lacking in monsters, in other respects, it actually felt like a DnD game.The ending seemed anti-climactic.
Unlike the previous two D&D movies, this one has several things going for it:non-standard plot: goodie-good knight going bad it's not something you're likely to see everyday.
Unlike the complete muppetness of the first two movies, this one actually makes good use of basic D&D quest structure, roles in an evil party (also something you won't commonly see in D&D sessions) and interesting uses for D&D items (kill someone, stick his body in a bag of holding and throw it away ...
He changes between scenes following the needs of the story and not a real play of character.the ending is terrible!!!
Dungeons & Dragons 3 – Book of Vile DarknessD&D has grown adult, and the third movie is finally mature and courageous enough to dare using protagonists who are antiheroes at best, or hellbent villains at their worst.
To give an example to readers:The wizard of the group, actually a wizard by base class and vermin lord by prestige class, is really inspired by a class which the supposedly evil Book of Vile Darkness allows roleplayers to create.
Seemingly it is based on the outdated 3,5 or 4th edition of the game-books.The Shadakai Witch then, just to mention one special aspect, is able of healing magic, as is shown in the movie.
It makes this movie outstanding among roleplayers, as 'good-guy charades' are considered a more proper, but actually only more stupid, moralist & hypocrite way to make use of Dungeons & Dragons.
This movie had action, violence, evil, a good-looking main character and actual plot that follows true DnD lore with a minor artifact of power.My only gripe with the movie...
the main character goes from like a level 4 warrior to a level 30 paladin and obliterates all the bad guys in the last 2 minutes of the movie.
I was expecting a conclusion made like the introduction was, telling us how Grayson destroyed or hid the book parts again, but apparently the future of the book is irrelevant for the movie called The Book of Vile Darkness..
Great Movie BUT Terrible ENDING !.
I Don't like the HERO actually he look so dumb.Haven't watch "Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness" first two movies.
I have seen lots of good movies BUT terrible endings? |
tt0113862 | Mr. Holland's Opus | Glenn Holland, not a morning person by anyone's standards, is woken up by his wife Iris early one bright September morning in 1964. Glenn has taken a job as a music teacher at the newly renamed John F. Kennedy High School. He intends his job to be a sabbatical from being a touring musician, during which he hopes to have more "free time" to compose. However, he soon finds that his job as a teacher is more time-consuming than he first thought.As he arrives at the school for the first time, he meets Vice Principal Wolters, who comments on his Corvair, the model of car the Ralph Nader wrote a book about. Inside the building, he meets Principal Helen Jacobs. Having got off to an awkward start with both of them, he goes to the music room and meets his students for the first time. The students are dull, apathetic, and mostly terrible musicians. At lunchtime, he meets the football coach, Bill Meister, and strikes up a friendship with him. At the end of his stressful first day, Glenn and Iris talk about their future. If everything goes according to plan, between his paychecks and what she made with her photography, he should be able to quit in four years and go back to his music, including composing.Glenn notices one dedicated but inept clarinet player, Gertrude Lang, and starts working with her individually. He continues attempting to teach the class about music and continues working on his music at home as time passes. Grading papers gradually replaces working on his own music during his home time, much to his chagrin. After several months, Glenn grows exasperated when it seems that none of his students have learned anything from his classes. Gertrude, despite diligent practice, does not improve her clarinet-playing. Glenn's exasperation is further compounded when the Principal Jacobs chastises him for not focusing properly on his students. She has noticed that he is even happier to leave at the end of each day than most of the students. Later, Glenn expounds his frustration to Iris, who then informs him that she's pregnant. Glenn is dumbstruck, and his muteness upsets Iris. To comfort her, he tells her a story about how he discovered John Coltrane (his favorite musician) records as a teenager, the point being he could get used to this turn of affairs.After some soul-searching, Glenn decides to try some unconventional methods of teaching music appreciation, including the use of 'Rock and Roll' to interest students, demonstrating to them the similarities between Bach's "Minuet in G" and rock-and-roll in the form of the Toys' "Lovers Concerto". For the first time, the students are interested in the class, and Glenn appears much happier as he relates this to Iris as they assemble a crib. Their apartment is getting more and more crowded, and Glenn suggests that they get a house. Iris is overjoyed, even though it means using their savings and Glenn sacrificing his summer vacation, which he intended to use to work on his composing, in order to make extra money teaching Driver's Ed. Glenn does right by his family but he knows he can forget about getting out of the teaching gig for the foreseeable future.Continuing his new, unorthodox teaching methods, he finally gets Gertrude, who was on the verge of giving up, to have a breakthrough and become a more skilled clarinet player. She rediscovers her joy of playing, and the now-competent band go on to play at the 1965 graduation. Summer vacation begins, and Glenn follows through on his plan to teach Driver's Ed, having a series of near-death experiences at the hands of new drivers. Glenn and Iris move into their new house. Soon, we see the Driver's Ed car once again, except this time it is Glenn himself driving like a maniac, breaking every traffic law - so that he could get to the hospital to see his newborn son, Coltrane ("Cole") Holland.Glenn's unorthodox teaching methods do not go unnoticed by Principal Jacobs, or Vice-Principal Wolters. They, along with the conservative School Board and the parents of the community, are hostile to rock-and-roll. Glenn is able to convince the principal that he believes strongly that teaching the students about all music, including rock-and-roll, will help them appreciate it all the more. The principal and vice principal also hand him a new assignment, to get a marching band together for the football team. Glenn is at a loss with this concept, until his Bill Meister agrees to help, in exchange for Glenn putting one of his football players, Louis Russ, in the band to allow him to earn an extra curricular activity credit, which he needs in order to stay eligible for the sports teams. Louis knows absolutely nothing about music, but takes up drums. He has trouble keeping time and always finds himself out of place with the rest of the band.Later, Glenn and Bill are chatting while playing chess. Bill, a bachelor, wants to know about Glenn's stories of debauchery as a traveling musician, but Glenn doesn't want to talk about the past, as he is a different person in a different time. Glenn instead tells Bill he is pessimistic about Louis Russ. Bill encourages him to keep trying. Much as he worked with Gertrude earlier, Glenn starts working one-on-one with Louis, helping to get a feel for the tempo of music. After some hard work, Louis gets it, and later, he marches with the band in the local parade, much to the delight of his family.Immediately behind the Kennedy band in the parade is a fire engine, and its deafeningly loud horn catches everyone by surprise. Iris looks into Cole's stroller to check on him, but the noise hasn't awakened Cole - the boy is deaf. The revelation drives a wedge between Glenn and his son, as it seems that his son cannot understand what he does. A more somber Glenn teaches his students about Beethoven, the deaf composer.Time passes, and we see a montage of events from the late '60s, as Glenn picks away as his composition a little at a time and watches Iris work with Cole. We stop again in the early '70s, with Glenn still directing his high school band. Cole is old enough to enter school. Because of her mounting frustration with her inability to communicate with Cole, she insists on sending him to a special school for the deaf, whatever the cost. The three of them visit the school. Glenn winces at the cost, but they enroll Cole and set about to learn sign language themselves, though Iris puts more effort into it than Glenn.Apathetic students still go through Glenn's classes, and one of them, named Stadler, is stoned. Glenn is chewing him out when Glenn receives bad news. He tells Stadler to meet him on Saturday. On that day, they appear at a funeral. Louis Russ has come home from Vietnam after being killed in action. Coach Meister is there, and he and Glenn mourn. At the end of that academic year, Bill reveals that he finally has a steady girl-friend, and Principal Jacobs retires from the high school, praising Glenn for what he has done.We see another montage of events, this time in the 1970s. Glenn continues teaching Driver's Ed in the summer. We see the class of 1980 being welcomed back, suggesting that it is now September 1979. Glenn and Bill Meister team up to help the Drama Department, when it is rumored that funding may be pulled. Glenn and Bill tell Wolters, now the principal, have an idea to be certain the school will make money rather than lose it; it will be a musical revue of Gershwin classics. During auditions for the musical revue, Glenn becomes entranced and interested in a talented young singer named Rowena Morgan. At home, the teenage Cole comes home and tells Glenn about the science fair, which Glenn missed. Iris is fluent at sign language now, but Glenn is still only fair. Iris reproaches him for spending so much time with the school projects and the students while neglecting his own son. Glenn is frustrated, realizing that his own musical composing has been on the back burner for 15 years now.Rowena visits Glenn at a diner, where he has gotten into the habit of going to get out of the house and have someplace quiet to work. Unknown to Iris, Glenn writes a small piece that he titles "Rowena's Theme," and takes an interest when Rowena states that she wants to leave town and go to New York to sing professionally. Glenn's life at home is still strained. Iris agrees to come to the school play on Saturday, because she had a meeting with Cole's teachers on opening night (Friday).The school revue arrives at last, and is a big hit, playing to a packed house. In the audience we see Coach Meister wearing a ring (he married the woman we saw earlier), and Sarah, the drama teacher, shows Principal Wolters something on a new invention, a handheld calculator (presumably, showing him how much gate money made it into the school coffers, as Wolters looks impressed). After the revue, Rowena comes to see Glenn in the auditorium, and she tells him she intends to pursue her dream of singing by going to New York the very next night, after the second and last performance of the revue. Glenn is taken aback. Rowena hints that she'd like Glenn to come with her. Glenn goes home and looks at his photo album, looking at pictures of his family and pictures of his old life as a traveling musician, now half a lifetime in the past. He is tempted to leave everything behind and go with Rowena to restore his old life as a musician. However, he realizes he is no longer the same person as he was then. He visits Rowena at the bus stop and sees her off, giving her the names of someone in New York who will help her find lodging. Glenn watches her depart, and goes home, content in his love for Iris.The timeline then shifts to late 1980, when John Lennon is killed. Glenn goes home and finds Cole working on Glenn's old Corvair. When Cole asks what is wrong, Glenn tries to explain, but then gives up, feeling that his son wouldn't understand John Lennon or his music. This infuriates Cole who (through Iris), explains that he does care about Glenn and knows about John Lennon, but that Glenn does not seem to be at all interested in communicating with him. Cole berates his father for putting so much effort in to teaching his students and very little towards him, calling him an asshole in sign language as he stalks off. Glenn then makes an effort, and even provides a concert at the high school, which also features lights and other items to enhance the show for deaf members of the school where Cole attends. Glenn, having become somewhat more proficient in sign language, even does an interpretation of Lennon's song 'Beautiful Boy,' dedicated to Cole. Later, Glenn discovers Cole listening to records by sitting on the speakers and feeling the vibrations through his body, and they can start healing the rift between them, even as Glenn's composition continues to gather dust.Time passes. It's now 1995. Glenn goes to see Principal Wolters, who announces that Art, Music and Drama have been cut from the school curriculum, and Glenn would be out of a job shortly. Glenn, who has become a cynical old man, tells Wolters that to cut the fine arts would lead to a generation of students who would be proficient at reading and writing and math (maybe) but would have nothing to read or write about. Wolters offers to write Glenn a reference, but Glenn, who is now 60 years old, fully recognizes the futility of the gesture. His working days are over and he knows it. Then he looks up at the picture on the wall of the long-departed former Principal Jacobs. He says Jacobs would have fought the budget cuts, and he will too. Glenn pleads to the school board to reconsider, but they refuse.At home, Iris reads a letter from the now-grown Cole. He has become a teacher himself, and was considering an offer from a university for the deaf in Washington, D.C. He also has taken Glenn's old car, the Corvair that we saw at the beginning and that Cole was working on in his teens, and jokingly writes that he will never give it back. Despondent, Glenn walks through the school on his last day, and he talks to Coach Bill, whose job as football coach is safe, though he can't be far from retirement himself. Glenn figures that he will bring in some money teaching piano lessons on the side, but he's unprepared to be forced into early retirement.On Glenn's final day at the school, Cole shows up driving the Corvair. School's out for him, too. Glenn is surprised when Iris and Cole lead him to the school auditorium, where they have organized a surprise going-away celebration for him. He sees many of his former students in the audience, including Stadler, the pothead from years before. Arriving next is Gertrude Lang, the clarinetist who Glenn helped in the 60s, who has since become the state's governor. Gertrude thanks Glenn for his dedication, and Glenn is very moved. He is moved to tears when she gives him a baton and asks him to conduct his own composition, which she had got hold of. The curtains open and a band, filled with more of Glenn's former students, is assembled and ready to play. Governor Lang picks up her clarinet and takes her place among them, and they play, for the first time, the musical Opus that Glenn had been picking away at for three decades. | inspiring, romantic, stupid, feel-good | train | imdb | null |
tt0249380 | Baise-moi | Baise-moi tells the story of Nadine and Manu who go on a violent spree against a society in which they feel marginalized. Nadine is a part-time sex worker, and Manu a slacker who does anything—including occasional porn film acting—to get by in her small town in southern France.
One day, Manu and her friend, a drug addict, are accosted in the park by three men, who take them to a garage and gang-rape them. While her friend struggles, screams, and fights against the rapists, Manu lies still with a detached look, which troubles the man raping her, who soon gives up. When her friend asks Manu how she could act so detached, she replies that she "can't prevent anyone from penetrating her pussy", so she didn't leave anything precious in there. Manu then returns to her brother's house, and does not tell him what has happened, but noticing bruises on her neck, he realizes. He gets out a gun and asks Manu who was responsible, but when she refuses to tell him, he calls her a "slut" and implies that she actually enjoyed being raped. In response, picking up the discarded pistol, Manu shoots him in the head.
Meanwhile, Nadine returns home and has an argument with her roommate, whom she strangles and kills, before leaving with their rent money. Nadine suffers another emotional setback when she meets her best friend, a drug dealer, in another town, but he is shot and killed while out obtaining drugs with a prescription she forged for him.
Later that night, having missed the last train, Nadine meets Manu at the railway station. Manu says she has a car, if Nadine will drive for her. They soon realize that they share common feelings of anger, and embark on a violent and sexually charged road trip together.
In need of money, the girls hold up a shop and also kill a woman at a cash machine. In a stolen car, they are pulled over for a random check by police, whom they kill. Another woman, who was also being checked and saw the murders, flees with them. The women stay over at their new friend's house, whose brother provides the address and details of an architect with whom he has had trouble. The women trick their way into the architect's house and kill him. Finally, after this spree of murder and sexual activity, the two women enter a swingers' club. One of the patrons makes a racist comment to Manu. The women kill most of the patrons there, and use a gun to anally penetrate the racist man, finally shooting him. The pair discuss what they have done, and agree that it has all been pointless because nothing has changed in them.
During their spree, the duo's crimes are reported by the press, and become a point of fascination for the entire country, with some people actually supporting them, and others afraid of them. When Manu enters a roadside tire shop to get some coffee, she is shot by the shop owner, who is then shot by Nadine outside. Nadine takes Manu's body to a forest and burns it, before driving to a beach. With tears in her eyes, Nadine puts the gun to her head, intending to commit suicide, but gets arrested by the police before she can do so. | gothic, cruelty, violence, cult, revenge, sadist | train | wikipedia | Maybe it's because I live in Holland and have a very open mind to sex, drugs and well, maybe not to murder but I was not that shocked.Of course the rape scene was a bit hard and did not leave much to your imagination, but the rest....
I think more of it as an experimental piece of work, seek your own reasons for what they are doing, enjoy this wild ride and if you persist in having a monumentuous storyline, oscar performances and so on, and you are not specifically entertained by x rated sex, lots of blood and the socalled 'holes' in this story then....Just don't watch this movie!!!!The backside of the DVD or VHS gives plenty of clues that this is a controversial movie and when you have an open mind and like these kind of movies, i recommend it.We give it a 7.0.
Unlike some films, this one doesn't in any way glorify violence though, it merely shows the sad inevitability of it as far as its two main characters are concerned.Both Nadine (Karen Lancaume aka Karen Bach) and Manu (Raffaella Anderson) routinely endure violation both in word and deed on an almost daily basis as sex workers, prostitute and part-time porno performer respectively.
The resemblance to "Thelma and Louise" however, ends with that; the sex is unusually graphic (and in copious supply) as is the violence (a lot of stomping to death, and a lot of blood and other organic matter splattering after bullet impact).On an intellectual level, one could make the case that the film's very essence is the relationship of sex and violence (as manifested by the only sex these women know: one is a small-time prostitute, and the other has earned money from time to time by performing in pornographic films.
It is important to note, however, that the victims of their rampage are not only creepy men interested in creepy sex, (of which there are several)but innocent passersby, a woman at an ATM, for example, as well.I myself do not really understand why the repeated "porn-movie" shots were all that necessary, (except to depict the physical contact as cruel, unpassionate and debased) and the unrelenting gore did get rather tedious after the first few violent spasms.It is a coarse and crude movie, but in fairness, it is dealing with coarse and crude people and equally unpleasant circumstances.
Films that show the real horror of rape may discourage it more than ones that show women 'getting over it.' One of the victims of rape in Baise-Moi actually 'lets' her assailants get on with it, commenting to her friend afterwards that at least they didn't wind up dead.
Amidst all the controversy about the porno-style sex scenes, random acts of violence, liberal depictions of drug use and so on it seems the central question has been lost - is Baise-moi actually any good?
Nevertheless, the opening is well-played out and directed with surprising flair (especially considering that this is the debut movie for both its directors).However, when the plot kicks in proper and the two women end up on the run together the film's interest begins to drop fast.
It's only real use is as a shock tactic, but even this is wasted on anyone who's seen a porn film - the violence side of it is no worse than is seen in any number of straight-to-video action/thriller flicks.Ultimately, all there is to recommend Baise-moi is a couple of impressive acting performances, a few amusing lines of dialogue and a thought-provoking 20 minutes at the start.
Not cartoonish, like Natural Born Killers, but raw violence; uncaring, unmerciful, and brutal.The sex is real, but it is like nothing you see in porn films.
Circumstances do not allow that to happen, and the ending is rather abrupt and somewhat lacking.Men joke about PMS, but if it is anything like the rage depicted by the women who made this film, you better watch out.
There was so much sex and violence that I got the strong impression that the film was trying very, very hard to be offensive, as if it was aiming at superlatives in ugliness, rather than in telling a convincing tale about two women caught in a spiral of crime.Baise-moi had been described as "Thelma & Louise with actual sex" to me.
There are two women traveling through the country because they've committed crimes and know that their lives are finished now, that the police are going to catch them, and they decide that now that everything's over anyway, there is no way to hold back.Baise-moi had been described as a feminist film where women, who had suffered from male dominance in the past, exact revenge upon the men that they encounter.This is something that I had never interpreted into this film, simply because none of these women had ever been innocent, and because they do not just kill irresponsible, violent men, but also men that they seduce themselves, men that show the sense of wanting to do protected sex.
I got the feeling that sex and violence were only there in order to create a superlative in ugliness, rather than in conveying a story, or making a point.Baise-moi left me with no impression, hadn't set me thinking, because it was so far removed from any real world.
That it's title translates into 'F*** Me' in English was hardly promising - but I tried to keep an open mind throughout.Within minutes - I was left baffled by a plot that barely makes sense, acting that makes daytime tv soap operas look like Oscar material, and some of the worst directing I've ever seen.The violence within the film is highly graphic, but nothing particularly terrible.
The leads in this film are not exactly likeable at the start of the picture, let alone when they go on a killing spree murdering anyone and everyone that gets in their way.The rape sequence is very graphic - and certainly more realistic than your average Hollywood attempts.
Not even 'Ms 45' killed everyone she could - only men who she had an understandable fear of following her ordeal.Certainly not a film for the faint of heart, I thought I could stomach almost anything - but watching them murder yet another person unjustly whilst having sex with yet another person who they later murder - it all became a bit too much.
It's not like people watching this film have not seen the act of sex before.When a movie goer goes to see a film, specifically one calling itself an art film, they expect to see fresh, thought-provoking material.
"Baise-Moi" is one of the most shocking movies ever made.The film is truly ugly in its depiction of sex,brutality and rape.The story is simple:a rape victim and a hooker join together to trek Paris leaving trail of bloody corpses behind them.The two leads(real porn stars Raffaella Anderson and Karen Lancaume)have graphic sex and they also do a lot of drugs and kill plenty of people in many gory and bizarre ways.The film is extremely violent-the rape scene at the beginning is very ugly and uncompromising.Many viewers sitting with me in the cinema left the theatre offended.This is strong stuff and definitely not for everybody,but it still has some kind of a social impact,so I wouldn't go so far to call it mindless exploitation.It is raw and convincing when when it shows women being abused by men or when it shows women working in the sex trade.Highly recommended.10 out of 10..
The movie contains a graphic rape sequence, a few more explicit sex scenes and "tons" of gore and violence, without being able to deliver a message.
Graphic depiction of violence and sex in movies absolutely don't offend me (on the contrary, if well done and essential to the plot, I surely like it), but I wasn't very impressed by this one.
Stanley Kubrick talked for years about wanting to make a porn film for mainstream audiences, but I doubt even he could have got this past the censors.The plot(which has been likened to Thelma and Louise) concerns two french girls who go on a sex and murder spree after falling foul of a couple of degenerates.
Baise Moi is the story of two women, Manu and Nadine (played by porn stars) who hit the road to take out their aggression on unsuspecting men (and sometimes women), in what could be described as Thelma and Louise with hardcore sex scenes.
Okay, this could be an appealing combination for many audiences but what really strikes you about Baise Moi is its utter ineptitude and ugliness.Directed by two women; Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi (based on ex-prostitute Despente's novel), the film does evoke a substantial feel of female rage and bitterness towards men, although having the two leads kill innocents does leave a nasty taste in the mouth and detracts from the film's message.
I'm sure Freud would have had a field day with it, but he probably would have had better things to do.Porn stars Raffaela Anderson and Karen Bach act to the best of their ability, pulling off (excuse the pun) some of the more emotional scenes satisfactorily, but you just can't help thinking that they are just playing at being 'proper' actresses.
There is a close-up penetration shot during the opening rape scene (cut from UK prints), several blow jobs, a gun being inserted in a man's arse and fired and hardcore sex aplenty, but most shocking of all is the fact that a film so poorly made has been merited as such a classic in some quarters.
Why this would require explicit sexual scenes was beyond me, but since such things have been done before in a way that was not a total catastrophe (thinking mostly of Irréversible) i decided to give it a chance.I found this movie to be utter garbage.
I read an article in the NY Times concerning ways in which film makers are pushing the envelope when it comes to sex in mainstream movies.
Take excessive violence, add a some hardcore porn scenes and French alternative rock music and what you´ve got is a hip and provoking movie, a shocking and disturbing portrait of generation X...
The film is shot with a hand-held camera and the amateur illumination and the shady set decoration convey you every time that feeling to be in a real porn movie.
Maybe, if you don't like movies, TV, and entertainment having so much sexual objectification of women, so much violence, don't watch them.And if you're a director, don't make them.Otherwise, some day someone will ask for an open mind when what happened in this "movie" happen in real life.Heck, some people seem to like it so much..
Of course, criminal acts like murder are not a good example for youth, but wake up, this is not a silly movie about youth, revenge against society or girl power, it's just a violently superb road-movie about two hopeless young women already dead when they meet each others.
Baise-Moi is like a bad violent road porn movie.
This movie looks like a horrible combination of 'Deliverance', 'Thelma and Louise', and 'Clockwork Orange' - with just the worst parts taken from those films.Finally, just because the film was made by women doesn't make it any better.
Real front runner of the New French Extremity wave of early 2000s.If you are a teen or in early 20s, and you like to watch a film which mixes violence, sex and Thelma and Louise type of one-time-shots-in-life films, this is a film for you.I strongly recommend this film..
If real sex were to be shown, it should have been about the intimacy between the two people instead of the prostitution, rape and sodomy.Baise-moi is about a lot of things, revolt, sexual violence, lust, rebellion, attack on the rich, the scums, the sleaze, the pervs, the life of slackers, drug addicts and low lives.
I'm really not sure what the directors were attempting to do with the film, either making another Thelma & Louise, but on crack, or showing that pornography is actually a violence towards women, as, both the directors and the lead actresses have experienced, in the porn industry, women are often used as objects of extreme sex, violence and humiliation.Either way, the film really doesn't merit the title of a film that changed the way people thought, it was simply trying to say something about pornography and the violence that comes with it, mixed into an indie film, that was so violent and sexually explicit that it was banned in several countries and changed several censorship titles in France.If you want a better story about nihilism, a lot violence and killings, with a clear message about why they are depicted, watch Natural Born Killers, instead..
there is still some blood in the movie but what made this film censored are the explicit love/rape scenes.
That doesn't really mean it's any good though, or enlightening much on the human condition or, you know, giving a good story.If there is any story it's all knock-off, like Thelma and Louise re-written by Frank Miller on a lesser day and filmed by a kid who's just got a digital camera and has watched far too many no-budget exploitation movies.
It's simply about two women (both also porn stars, which helps to explain why they go for such explicit sex scenes without question), Madine and Manu, who meet one day when one forced the other by gun point to drive her to the ocean, then the two decide to join together to do...
If nothing else, it's not I Spit on Your Grave, which most of us can be thankful for.It's also shot with some kind of ugly near-yellow tint giving everything a sickened jaundiced look, and acted by porn actresses who barely know two modes to act: Manu is giddy in the most sadistic way or just not giving a damn about what happens to her (rape early on) or how many people she kills (which is a lot, nearing Natural Born Killer numbers by the end I take it), while Nadine is more withdrawn, quiet, an occasional smirk but with less of a real drive to be on this pointless trip except as something to do or be.
I don't know for you, but when I hear Porn movie, all sort of pictures come to my mind, blow job, close up, anal sex, 3some, gang bang, facial etc....any action starting from soft penis ending in soft penis and of course the cheesiest dialogues ever.So in "Baise Moi" (I don't know who translated it in US by "Rape Me" but this is wrong), there is penetration sex, rare close ups, but there is not the show off of all the above action, so I would have to disagree with the people mentioning that it's only Porn.I think some people got offended by seeing penis, it's funny how a naked woman showering or actually even faking a sex scene is art and how a naked man with a hard on is Porn, some people need to get real a bit Another crippling fact for that movie is the translation, I have not managed to get a dubbed copy so I just watched a subtitled copy of it, and god was the translation poor and approximative.
The movie tells the story of two young women who go on a sexual and violent rampage together, each one for her own reasons and maybe because they want to be cruel to people representing a society that has always been cruel to them.
If you are about to watch a recent controversial French movie about topics like sexual violence, go for "Irréversible" instead..
There is violence, sex and generally quite a lot happening, but still the movie refuses to tell any story, teach any morals, elicit compassion, subscribe to any ideology, it doesn't even wish to entertain.What I want to comment on is the advertising line "banned in France".
This is quitedefinitely the worst film I have ever seen.Incredibly violent and full of graphic pornography (some guys outthere are now probably asking what more could you want) that arethe cause of the controversy that surrounds Baise-Moi (literaltranslation Rape Me) will no doubt draw some people in.Controversy always draws a crowd, and that will help this film - it'sthe only thing that can.Playing like a porn movie with delusions of grandeur, or a badSpanish soap opera but in French there is nothing good you cansay of this film.
I think this movie was only made to provoke and shock,because it is a bad piece off film making.I dont think anyone will see it as anything besides garbage.It has no story or atmosphere and we dont feel for any of the characters.
If you want to see this movie for the sex scenes,then dont bother,because it is filmed badly.Go rent a porn movie instead,it might even have a better story.And if you are watching it because of the violence,I have to say that I have seen movies that are way sicker.The only reason to see this movie,is to see something new,you might call it a bad porn movie with a story..
Virginie Despentes film "Baise Moi" is not a good movie when it comes to filmmaking.
And the two women lead talents were doing really nice jobs with their given characters.That being said, then the potentially great movie was really butchered by the explicit sex scenes.
Mixing extreme violence with hardcore sex, Baise-moi is a taboo busting piece of French cinema that exists purely to shock.
"Baise-moi" isn't the first film to combine un-simulated sex with elements of non-porn movies, actors and a "real" storyline.
To mind come the infamous "Caligula", various exploitation pictures from the 70's and 80's, or Larry Clarks ill-fated "Ken Park", to name but a few.However, unlike the two movies mentioned above, who utilized explicit sex-scenes; "Baise-moi" comes across more as a porn-film that tries to disguise itself as a feminist's thriller. |
tt0408790 | Flightplan | Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is a propulsion engineer based in Berlin, Germany. Her husband David (John Benjamin Hickey) died from falling off the roof of an avionic manufacturing building, and now Kyle and her six year-old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) are flying home to Long Island to bury him and stay with Kyle's parents. They fly aboard a passenger aircraft, an Elgin 474, which Kyle helped design. After falling asleep for a few hours, Kyle wakes to find that Julia is missing. After trying to remain calm at first, she begins to panic, and Captain Marcus Rich (Sean Bean) is forced to conduct a search. Kyle walks the aisles, questioning people, but none of her fellow passengers remember having seen her daughter. One of the flight attendants calls in to the airport they just departed from and, shockingly, the gate attendant says that they have no record of Julia boarding the flight. In addition, according to the passenger manifest, Julia's seat is registered empty. When Kyle checks for Julia's boarding pass, it is missing.Marcus refuses to allow the cargo hold to be searched because the searchers could be hurt if the plane shifted due to turbulence. Both Marcus and the other crew members suspect that Kyle has become unhinged by her husband's recent death, and has imagined bringing her daughter aboard. One flight attendant Stephanie (Kate Beahan) is exceptionally unsympathetic. Faced with the crew's increasing skepticism regarding her daughter's existence, Kyle becomes more and more desperate. Because of her increasingly erratic, panicked behavior, air marshal Gene Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) is ordered by Marcus to guard and handcuff her.Later on, Marcus receives a wire from the hospital in Berlin. It says that Julia was with her father when he fell off the roof, and she also died of internal injuries. Kyle furiously denies that, consistently claiming that she brought Julia aboard. The crew now believes she is delusional and she is brought back to her seat by Air Marshal Carson. A therapist (Greta Scacchi) on board tries to console her, causing Kyle for a moment to doubt her own sanity until she notices that a heart Julia had drawn earlier on the window next to her seat is real. Kyle is emboldened and convinces the therapist to let her use the bathroom. With her handcuffs now removed, she climbs into the upper compartment and sabotages the aircraft's electronics, deploying the oxygen masks and interrupting lighting. Some passengers brawl with the red herring Arab passengers on board. She uses the chaos to take an elevator to the lower freight deck. She desperately searches for Julia and finally opens her husband's casket to which she emotionally breaks down. Carson finds her and escorts her back.Kyle makes a final plea to Carson that she needs to search the plane upon landing. Carson considers for a moment, then "goes to speak to the captain," against flight attendant Stephanie's command (they are landing), leaving the audience to momentarily believe he is sympathetic. Instead, he sneaks back into the freight deck to remove two small explosives and a detonator concealed in David's casket. He then climbs down to a part of the avionics section, revealing Julia is sleeping (presumably drugged) with her coat and backpack that no one could find. He attaches the explosives to the side of the platform and arms them. At this point, it is revealed that Carson, Stephanie, and the coroner in Berlin (Christian Berkel) are the antagonists and part of a conspiracy. Carson tells the captain that Kyle is a hijacker and is threatening to blow up the aircraft with explosives hidden in the un-X-rayed casket unless the airline transfers $50,000,000 into a bank account. It is revealed that the conspirators killed Kyle's husband and abducted Julia in order to frame Kyle. Carson tells an unnerved Stephanie that he intends to blow up the aircraft's avionics section, killing the unconscious Julia, and leave Kyle dead with the detonator in her hand.After making an emergency landing at Goose Bay Airport in Goose Bay, Labrador, the passengers exit the aircraft as the tarmac is surrounded by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents (though the airport is properly Royal Canadian Mounted Police jurisdiction). As the captain is leaving, Kyle runs to speak to him with Carson in tow. The captain demands she give up her charade, revealing Carson's deception. Quickly playing the role of hijacker, Kyle demands that Carson stay on board and the crew disembark.As soon as the plane's door closes, Kyle knocks Carson unconscious with a fire extinguisher, handcuffs him to a rail, and takes the detonator from his pocket. Stephanie comes out of hiding and Kyle screams "she's in avionics isn't she?" Carson quickly regains consciousness and fires at Kyle with a concealed gun, sending her running. He chases after Kyle shooting, until she locks herself in the cockpit. He reveals his conspiracy to talk her out. She opens a hatch door to the upper level and throws out a binder to fool him. Carson hears the upstairs thud and leaves. Kyle exits and encounters a guilt-ridden Stephanie slapping her palm with a large flashlight. Kyle talks her down and punches her out. Stephanie panics and flees the plane, abandoning Carson who looks on.Kyle during this time searches avionics and finally finds the unconscious Julia. Carson soon follows, and while searching, tells her how he gagged and dumped her daughter into the food bin. He disparages the people aboard who would never care enough to notice. Carson points his gun to where Julia lay before, but they're not there. He turns around and sees Kyle carrying Julia, escaping through a small door with the detonator in hand. Carson shoots at her as she closes the door. She detonates the explosives, killing Carson. The compartment she and Julia hid in was non-combustible, which keeps them safe. Kyle, carrying Julia, exits via a cargo door. Everyone watches in shock and amazement as Kyle carries her daughter out onto the tarmac.Later in the passenger waiting section of the airport, Marcus apologizes to a seated Kyle holding Julia in her arms. Stephanie is led away by FBI agents and more agents approach Kyle, asking her to identify the morgue director in Berlin who has been detained. She carries Julia still unconscious through the crowd of passengers, silently redeeming herself. One of the Arab passengers (Michael Irby) helps pick up her bag, a symbolic act of respect and forgiveness. Before loading her daughter into a van to take them away, Julia wakes up and sleepily asks "Are we there yet?" as they drive away.
In this movie appears Christian Berkel who will later play the role of Fritz Shimon Haber in Haber. | mystery, suspenseful, action, murder, flashback | train | imdb | *** This comment may contain spoilers ***This must be close to the plot synopsis:Man: "You know we're always saying we could use 50 million dollars?Woman: "Yes" Man: "Well I have a cunning plan." Woman: "What's that then?" Man: "First of all we need to find an aeronautics engineer working in a foreign country, with a child, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the layout of a particular long-haul plane." Woman: "Why's that?" Man: "Well then, you see, we murder her spouse, in such a way as it looks like an accident." Woman: "What for?" Man (exasperated): "Well then of course, we bribe the mortuary assistant at the hospital into letting us place explosives inside the casket." Woman: "But why?" Man: "I'm coming to that.
In Flightplan she goes one further a mother who loses her daughter during a transatlantic flight and whom no-one (including, most of the time, the audience) believes.Aircraft engineer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is devastated by the sudden death of her husband.
Ably assisted by Sean Bean as the Captain, wanting to give her every benefit of doubt but increasingly forced to accept the evidence of his own eyes, and Air Marshall Peter Sarsgaard who plays an interesting yet inscrutable character, we are mesmerised by Kyle Pratt and our own difficulty in knowing whether to believe her.
Well, imagine being on a plane with your child when you awaken from a brief nap only to discover that your offspring is missing.To compound matters further, imagine that no one remembers seeing your child on board and all passenger lists and appropriate documentation lead to a conclusion that your child never set foot in the flying tube 30,000 feet above the Atlantic.That is the premise behind the new Jodie Foster (Nell) film Flightplan that delivers just enough thrills and spills to squeeze out a three star rating from his critic.Reprising the claustrophobic atmosphere of her last starring vehicle, Panic Room, Foster stars as Kyle, as recent widower that decides to take her 6-year-old daughter back to America from Berlin to escape the memories surrounding her husbands tragic suicide.However, after catching a little shuteye at the back of the plane, Kyle awakens to discover that her daughter is missing and that no one recalls ever seeing young Julia on board.Is she crazy?
The game, as we say, is afoot and Kyle, under the very watchful eye of Air Marshall Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) runs up and down the AIR E-474 jumbo jet in a frantic attempt to try and convince others that her daughter is on board and that conspirators are attempting to conceal her whereabouts for reasons unknown.This is the second thriller set aboard a jetliner in just two months the other being Red Eye and Flightplan does just as good a job of instilling fear and tension aboard a vessel where mobility, options and hiding places are limited between the nose and tail of the aircraft.
Peter Sarsgaard continues to put in one good performance after another and everyone from Sean Bean (who finally, FINALLY makes it to the end credits of a film without being killed!) to Erika Christensen (Traffic) are provided just enough screen time to advance the story without having anyone go over the top in an attempt to steal the spotlight.That's the good.
The bad includes a bad guy who has what I call the Bond-villain syndrome whereas he feels he has to talk out loud revealing more than anyone in the same situation would for the purposes of ensuring us dumb audiences know the who's how's and what's behind the plot, and an ending that is kinda bumpy landing after such a long flight.However, director Robert Schwentke does a good job of rising above most of the screenplay's shortfalls and delivers a Hitchcockian caper that is well worth the price of admission even if you will hardly remember most of the plot points by the time you see it on the DVD shelves early next year.www.gregsreviews.com.
It appears there's an agenda to mark "Flightplan" comments as not useful.Director Robert Schwentke working with Peter Dowling and Billy Ray's screen play, hasn't added much to the film in order to make it a thriller to be reckoned with, but, in general, the film is not a total waste, as seems to be the perception among contributors.In a way, "Flightplan" plays with the viewer's perception as to who is behind the disappearance of Julia, the six year old girl traveling with her mother, Kyle, to New York.
When I first saw the looks of this film, I was very intrigued and thought it was going to be a "The Forgotten 2"....i was very wrong.What starts off is with Jodie Foster playing a mourning mother after the death of her husband.
Her and her daughter catch a flight to go stay with Foster's grandparents, however, after Jodie's character falls asleep, the daughter is gone....and to make matters worst, she is told that she never existed...Sounds like a good premise eh?
Jodie's performance throughout is good, not Oscar worthy but it is one of the highlights of the film (as well as the ever-cool Sean Bean.) Unfortunately I can't go into great depth of anything else of the story because of spoilers, but I will say that the ending plot is horrible, totally impossible and so therefore ruins the impact of the film and its good beginning.There are also a lot of other things that annoy me about the film, to cut a long list short here are some examples: - a brilliant, new state of the art plane...and there's hardly anyone on board.Foster's character, although confused and frustrated does get annoying after a bit, and seeing as w're meant to identify and sympathise with her, is not a good thing.The overall twist / ending plot is ridiculous, as I stated before.My vote is 6/10....go see the film for the enjoyment of Jodie Foster and some thrills.
Hitchcock fans will be delighted to know that German director Robert Schwentke has made a movie with a story just about as good as some of Hitchcock's - one that keeps them on the edge of their seats, and seems to keep the guessing game going until the end.Jodie Foster (Panic Room) plays Kyle Pratt, an airplane designer whose husband apparently fell off their roof and died recently.
The entire crew and all the passengers seem to think so, particularly one man named Carson (Peter Sarsgaard, The Skeleton Key), who proceeds to ask all the hard questions that she doesn't want to hear.Even though 99% of the movie takes place on board an airplane, the film never ceases to entertain.
It also reminds us of how annoying airplane flights can be, with hyperactive kids acting up right in front of you, or snobby passengers who say things like, "It's not like she lost her Palm Pilot." By the middle of the film, most of the passengers are just as patronizing, as they clap when Kyle is escorted back to her seat after causing a stir.It has its share of unique cinematography, with obscure camera angles (like a sideways shot beneath an airplane landing), but other seemingly pointless slow-motion shots that don't add much to the scene.
The movie's plot is very simply Hitchcockian -- a woman, Jodie Foster, loses her little girl aboard an international flight several thousands of feet in the air, and nobody on board remembers seeing the little girl at all, much less her disappearance.
I haven't read every comment, so I don't know if others have mentioned these plot holes (in addition to the many many I have read), but: (a) how does Jodie Foster know what damage the explosion is going to do to the plane - it could have destroyed the whole thing, including her and her daughter; (b) how come no-one apparently noticed that the co-conspirator air hostess remained on board the plane at the end - surely there would have been a head count?
I have not seen that many Jodie Foster films, but being that she is a fairly well known actress and Flightplan's premise seemed as good as any's I gave it a shot when invited to an opening showing with two friends.What followed was a mixture between humor, failed tension, and borderline entertainment.Flightplan derives its plot from a Hitchcock standpoint: A woman (Foster) boards a plane with her daughter, falls asleep and discovers that the little girl is missing.
In a frenzy to locate her missing child she frightens both crew and passengers alike in a search that may be only in her mind.Trouble is Flightplan never builds much excitement, leaving the audience caught between wondering the truth behind the film's mystery and not really caring but hoping things get interesting before everything is over.Jodie Foster plays a good anxious, worried mother and I had the urge to just reach up, slap her and say "Cut that out!" A well done acting role on her part that sparks empathy and emotional responses from those watching, bravo.
A few predictable plot twists manage to change things up just enough to have it stand out much better than some suspense thrillers (The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman springs to mind.).Overall, Flightplan stands as an easily forgettable and average entry in the Jodie Foster film history.5/10.
Jodie Foster is terrific as usual playing recently-widowed aircraft engineer and mother of a solemn little girl who is faced with terror and dread while on a flight from Germany to New York: her daughter vanishes and no one on-board will admit to ever having seen her.
Ironically, the opening (with Foster making burial arrangements in regards to her husband, and later feeling watched from her apartment window) are spookily dream-like, but the director becomes much more sober once the action moves to the plane, and yet his film could really use more of that surreal, what's-going-on ambiance he initially captured so succinctly.
This was the point I felt it struggled but I always knew it was going to come and by showing its hand late in the game and playing to its strengths for the majority of the time I felt it just about pulled it off.Foster isn't that great here in terms of range but she does sell the wide-eyed panic she has to deliver and her performance helps the film build tension within the cabin while also sharing her doubts about herself with the audience.
And the film plays with racial profiling as if it were some ridiculous plot device, instead of a serious issue.Since we never get a chance to care for the little girl (or, indeed, feel sorry for her for having such a nut for a mother), we couldn't care less what becomes of her, or for her mother's frantic search for her.The solution to the mystery must've roused complaints from Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshalls (not to mention the flight attendants union).
The editing tries to create some sense of claustrophobia/paranoia but it fails at that and ends up making the film feel like some trashy B-movie thriller that does anything but thrill.
I don't want to trash this movie, or Jodie Foster for that matter, but this film was way below expectations as a "thriller".
Jodie Foster usually makes good choices for roles, but the whole "panic room, flight plan" type movies she needs to shy away from.
I didn't believe a moment of it from the start, worse the film spins out in such away that it gives you time to think about how things don't fit together.To top it all off Jody Foster's character and performance are completely unlikable from the start.
From beginning to end, it's an implausibility.In terms of acting, Jodie Foster has become annoying (in a Panic Room way) and the only actor worth his salt is Sean Bean.
STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits Following on from the earlier-released Red Eye, Jodie Foster takes the lead role after a long break since her last film The Altar Boys (last one I can remember anyway, which I don't even think was released over here?) in 2005's second 'in-flight' thriller movie Flight Plan, a movie with an intriguing premise that is actually a lot less intriguing if you think about it.She plays a woman who has recently lost her husband.
As the senselessness and the nightmarishness of the situation take her over, she begins to suspect something is not right and sets off on a desperate quest to discover what happened to her missing child.As I said above, this film is sort of competing with Wes Craven's Red Eye as 2005's best 'in-flight' thriller movie.
Flightplan is a deceptive thriller, not because of the plot itself, but what the filmmakers do with it, conveniently genre switching midway through a film, with the latter half looking, albeit, like your standard good-guy/bad-guy battle on an airplane, promising big effects and interesting moments despite the cliché, but actually becomes so abrupt that you're wishing that, close to the end when you're led to believe that all is resolved among the characters, that it would continue and bring you into yet another series of events.
And for that, Flightplan becomes instantly mediocre.Jodi Foster, in her usual threatened mom roles of recent, plays a grieving widow who is joined by her six-year-old daughter as they fly her husband's body to Long Island, their new residence.
In the post-9/11 days of airline paranoia, you can believe that this crazy lady in a desperate search for her kid, creating much calamity on the plane, would probably be more quickly restrained than she had been.But, what might be a tasty psychological thriller, soon turns into standard action fare as we learn that Foster and her daughter are indeed targets of some crafty thieves who intend to use her as their "crazy woman on board" scapegoat in order to carry out their plans to get some money.
It's like the script was written with Crayola on index notes to scatter in a recycle bin and salvage randomly to pick paper thin plot points and airtight thin character development to hand over to the group of highly intelligent chimpanzees to bang out the D-grade direct-to-video TV script on Final Draft computer.It astounds me that Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard and (he was awesome as a bad guy in Patriot Games) Sean Bean waste their talent on this POS.
Flightplan, however, pretend to be a serious thriller-drama movie that proceed to sink itself into morbid Hollywood fantasyland towards the end.That the hideous quality of this film show the crew -- including the hack committee-paid screenwriters, greedy credit-coveting producers and coke-dealer-for-hire director -- care far more about showing the pretentiously splendid visuals than send the draft back in for further revision to eliminate the ridiculous plot elements and up the dose of plausibility or it goes out to be thrown into the pile of bad scripts in the blue recycle bin.One of the worst films I've ever seen for such ludicrously unbelievable plot concepts that demand I leave my brain at the door.
Dowling and Billy Ray and directed by Robert Schwentke staring Jodie Foster and Peter Sarsgaard (Garden State) attempts to answer the movie's tagline using a little girl and an unbelievably large airplane.Kyle Pratt played by Foster is escorting her daughter Julia played by Marlene Lawston and her husband's coffin to New York from Berlin after he dies in an accident.
This is probably not what a director wants to hear about his movie, but 2005's Flight Plan is a nice, non-descript action flick that provides a compliment of suspense that exactly equals what you're hoping for in a non-threatening action movie.Putting the always lovely--and often sympathetic--Jodie Foster on a jetliner over the Atlantic, with a missing child and a plane-load of irritated passengers wanting her to sit down and shut up, is a pretty solid way to blow 100 minutes.
But I believe my favorite movie I have seen this year is Flightplan, which I just saw tonight.Jodie Foster plays a woman whose husband has just died.
No one saw the daughter board with Jodie Foster.And so it begins.You think that Jodie Foster really had a daughter, and then the movie leads you to believe that she was just imagining the daughter, and that she is on the verge of nervous breakdown pending the onsetting grief from the death of her husband.The remainder of the motion picture is dedicated to her search for the daughter, small glimmers of hope that she is not crazy (that her daughter might be real), the quenching of those glimmers, and her mental and emotional battle throughout the flight to maintain her sanity.Then, more begins to unfold on that airplane which transcends her search for a daughter (who may have never existed to begin with).Topnotch casting, expert cinematography, engaging scriptwriting, and intense musical scoring all combine to bring you one of the most impacting movies you have seen in a long, long time, a taut thriller which will leave you reverberating with its resounding echoes long after the final credits have rolled.Very emotionally satisfying - it will draw you closer to those whom you love, and remind you of what is really important..
Serious spoilers, don't read if you haven't seen the movie.Overall, the setup was a good time, and for the first half of the film I was entertained and vaguely hoping Jodie Foster would wind up frothing at the mouth in a straitjacket before the end.
Never Really Takes Off. Jodie Foster plays Kyle Pratt, a mother with a young daughter bringing her husband's body back to the States on a gigantic super-plane.
Jodie Foster is always great on screen, the trailer was effective and engaging, the supporting actors looked strong and Red Eye was a really good film so I was hoping to see another good thriller in the sky.
Flightplan follows a plane engineer (Jodie Foster) as her daughter goes missing on a flight. |
tt0021079 | Little Caesar | Small-time Italian-American criminals Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) and his friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) move from New York to Chicago to seek their fortunes. Rico joins the gang of Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields), while Joe wants to be a dancer. Olga (Glenda Farrell) becomes his dance partner and girlfriend at the local taxi dance club.Joe tries to drift away from the gang and its activities including running several speakeasys and illegal gambling casinos, but Rico (whom the gang now refers to by his nickname 'Little Caesar') makes him participate in the robbery of the nightclub where he works. Despite orders from underworld overlord "Big Boy" (Sidney Blackmer) to all his men to avoid bloodshed, Rico guns down crusading police crime commissioner Alvin McClure during the robbery, with Joe as an aghast witness.Rico accuses Sam of becoming soft and seizes control of his organization. Rival boss "Little Arnie" Storch (Maurice Black) tries to have Rico killed, but Rico is only grazed by a bullet during a drive-by shooting. Rico and his gunmen pay Little Arnie a visit, after which Arnie hastily departs for Detroit. The Big Boy eventually gives Rico control of all of Chicago's Northside.Some months later, Rico becomes concerned that Joe knows too much about him. He warns Joe that he must forget about Olga, and join him in a life of crime. Rico threatens to kill both Joe and Olga unless he accedes, but Joe refuses to give in. Olga calls Police Sergeant Flaherty and tells him Joe is ready to talk, just before Rico and his henchman Otero (George E. Stone) come calling. Rico finds, to his surprise, that he is unable to take his friend's life. When Otero tries to do the job himself, Rico wrestles the gun away from him, though not before Joe is wounded. Hearing the shot, Flaherty and another cop give chase and kill Otero. With the information provided by Joe, Flaherty proceeds to crush Rico's organization.Desperate and alone, Rico retreats to the gutter from which he sprang. A few weeks later, while hiding in a flophouse, he becomes enraged when he learns that Flaherty has called him a coward in the newspaper. He foolishly telephones the cop to announce he is coming for him. The call is traced to the phone booth where Rico is. He runs from the police and hides behind a large billboard. Refusing to surrender, Flaherty personally shoots at the billboard with a tommy gun. Ironically, the billboard shows an advertisement featuring dancers Joe and Olga. The police walk around the billboard to find Rico dying on the ground who with his last breath mutters, "Mother of mercy... is this the end of Rico?" | violence | train | imdb | Rico Bandello, a petty crook nicknamed LITTLE CAESAR, plots his rise to become crime boss of the Big City.Edward G.
Robinson, with his frightening eyes and large ugly mouth, makes this human scum fascinating to watch - a cheap little monster in expensive suits, a moral nonentity with a big gun.Douglas Fairbanks Jr does a fine job with what little the script gives him as Rico's longtime buddy; the bland nature of his performance contrasts nicely to Robinson's florid acting style.
Special mention should be made of William Collier Jr who gives a touching portrayal as the mob's getaway driver who loses his nerve and attempts to go straight.Movie mavens will recognize an unbilled Lucille La Verne as the old crone who intimidates Rico near the end of the picture.With LITTLE CAESAR and PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) Warner Brothers established themselves as the Studio that could produce topnotch, gritty crime dramas.
If you know a little bit about his life story, you got your basic gangster plot for practically all films that followed, like Tony Camonte in SCARFACE.This film was the first of "the big three", together with PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) and SCARFACE: SHAME OF THE NATION (1932) and provided the blueprint for the modern gangster crime flic.
Robinson as Enrico Bandello in LITTLE CAESAR; James Cagney as Tom Powers in THE PUBLIC ENEMY; and Paul Muni as Tony Carmonte in SCARFACE.The interesting thing about these three sound classics is that the central anti-heroes are not the same (except in their willing use of violence).
Toward the end of the film there is an amazing shot of just his face, staring into the camera -- no words, no other characters, just Robinson as Rico, and you get a chance to see truly great acting!
LITTLE CAESAR (First National Pictures, 1930, released early January 1931), directed by Mervyn LeRoy, from the novel by W.R. Burnett, is not a movie dealing with the history of the pizza franchise, but a pioneer gangster melodrama of an underworld thug who rises to the leadership of a powerful gang.
As one of the few movies released during the early sound era to still hold interest today, the true success of LITTLE CAESAR is the casting of Robinson in the title role, referred to on many occasions as Rico, or his full name of Cesar Enrico Bandello.
They are a problem that sooner or later, we, the public, must solve." Unlike its rival, THE PUBLIC ENEMY, Rico is ambitious and power hungry from the start, and kills those who betray or stand in his way while Cagney's Tom Powers character is a cold-blooded killer who does away with some of his victims for the fun of it.Aside from Robinson's memorable performance and his occasional repeated catch phrase, "You can dish it out, but you can't take it," LITTLE CAESAR is full of classic scenes: Rico's introduction to "the boys" through the use of high range camera angles; the New Year's Eve robbery of a Bronze Peacock Night Club where Rico's best pal, Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbank Jr.) works as a dancer, and selected as a lookout for the gang by standing by the cigarette counter at the stroke of midnight; Rico's termination of a cowardly Tony Passa (William Collier Jr.) in front of the church steps after wanting to break from the gang and to seek help from his parish priest, Father McNeil; Rico's near machine-gun assassination attempt by a rival gang ordered by leader Little Arnie Lorch (Maurice Black) after purchasing a bundle of newspapers headlining his honorary banquet event; Rico's confrontation with Joe for betraying him for the sake of a woman, Olga Stassoff (Glenda Farrell), only to find he is unable to gun them both; Rico's reaching bottom by sleeping in a flop house, appearing dirty, teary eyed and in need of a shave; Rico eluding his capture by Flaherty; and the most famous closing line in movie history, "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" While portions of LITTLE CAESAR may appear primitive to contemporary viewers with its early use of sound technology, such as echos from spoken dialogue between the two main characters (Robinson and Fairbanks) in a diner, and others either in office or police station; or Vitaphone orchestration (by Erno Rapee) commonly heard in early talkies; or the lack of the sight of blood following the shooting of intended victims.
Robinson, which began playing on commercial television during the late night or mid-afternoon hours for several decades, continues to find a new audience whenever broadcast on Turner Classic Movies (sometimes as a double bill with THE PUBLIC ENEMY), where it was selected at one point in time as part of its weekly showcase, "The Essentials." Also distributed on video cassette and later DVD, LITTLE CAESAR is one vintage crime story that has stood the test of time.
However of the three gangster films I mentioned, my personal favorite would have to be THE PUBLIC ENEMY, as it's acting isn't quite as "over-the-top" and features a little more action and excitement.FYI--For an interesting error, watch Robinson's arm when he is shot towards the end of the film.
Both are sadly diminished by time with their formulaic conventions, weak supporting cast, and creaky early-sound production.When "Little Caesar" wants to project menace, we see Rico warn people "my gun's gonna speak its piece," only he doesn't really do much with it.
But in the end, what you get here is a thin story featuring a character who defies gravity and convention without doing very much of anything interesting.Maybe I should be more grateful to "Little Caesar" for paving the way to other, better gangster films of the 1930s.
The "Forward" that now appears on the beginning of the film was added for the 1954 re-release of Little Caesar and The public enemy (1931) as a combination package.The character Diamond Pete Montana was modeled on Jim Colosimo, who was murdered by Al Capone; and "The Big Boy" was based on corrupt politician William 'Big Bill' Thompson, Mayor of Chicago.
Robinson plays the OTHER iconic gangster in that OTHER iconic gangster film from 1931, "Little Caesar." But Mervyn LeRoy's film, though released before "The Public Enemy" by about four months, feels like a less remarkable rip off.
Most critics seem to think that the film wouldn't be anything without Robinson's performance--that's true, though I don't think it's all that much even with it.Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. plays Rico's best friend, providing the film with a much-discussed homosexual undertone.
Making waves in the crime world by his brutal actions in getting the job done Rico is given the honor to rip off the Bronze Peacock nightclub on New Years Eve run by Vellori's biggest mob rival Little Arnie Lorch, Maurice Black.
Along with James Cagney's role in "The Public Enemy", Robinson's portrayal here helped to exemplify the kinds of characters that for some time defined the genre.The story is not without interest in itself, as it follows the rise and decline of various gangsters and their followers.
Robinson plays Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello a small time hoodlum that becomes an underworld crime boss.
Name any gangster movie from the later years and you are bound to find something that was inspired by it, for in its short running time of a mere seventy four minutes, Little Caesar established several clichés that would stick with the genre for decades.After all, everyone is familiar with the 1970s version of Scarface which sees a penniless hoodlum rise from the gutter to become a major underworld crime figure due to ruthless ambition and sheer arrogance, but Little Caesar (and to an extent the original version of Scarface) did it first.
Little Caesar (1931)In many ways, this is where it started, and it gets judged against the better Warner gangster films that followed (including some truly amazing movies with Cagney or Muni).
Robinson's presence as Little Caesar himself, making his buddy, played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., look like the amateur he sort of was.
When Rico orders Joe to leave his mistress Olga Strassoff (Glenda Farrell), she takes a serious decision.Nobody can deny the historical importance of "Little Caesar", the movie shot in the American Great Depression that started the genre of movies of gangsters.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. will have probably written his performance off in this out of embarrassment by 1933, and ditto for Glenda Farrell who did much better work later on.The film's strengths are its visual style, at times very inventive, and Robinson's performance, culminating in his dying words stolen no doubt at gunpoint from Nero 'Is this the end of Rico?'A famous picture and worth seeing, but Cagney and Harlow in the Public Enemy is probably your best bet of the two..
Little Caesar is probably the critically least highly regarded of the trio of films,--Scarface and The Public Enemy being the other two--that kicked off the gangster cycle of the early thirties.
Despite the obvious drawbacks of being an early talking film with a mostly silent background for the soundtrack (except for the bullets) and some snappy dialog ('30s style), LITTLE CAESAR holds the attention like a magnet because of EDWARD G.
And snarl he does with most of his terse dialog, "yeah!"Most of it is played in the sort of acting style common to films of this period, but it still fascinates and demands attention with a plot line outlining the rise and fall of a ruthless and arrogant gangster who looks somewhat like Al Capone.
Robinson vividly gets across his character with a snarl in his voice that seems a little melodramatic after awhile (almost a parody of a gangster) but suits the style of this lurid underworld melodrama directed with style by Mervyn LeRoy.DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR.
Although a bit dated, it still holds up 75 years after its initial release.Rico (Robinson) and his pal Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) are a couple of small time hoods.
For any student of early sound films (are there any left?) Little Caesar is the original recipe for mob gangster movies of the modern era.
This had a major and direct influence on classics like the godfather, the Scarface remake and Some like it Hot.Edward g Robinson delivers the kind of performance only a handful of actors ever could.There are some scenes in here shot by the great master LeRoy that capture a time like few other movies ever have..
As he sets his sights on the top boss job held by Pete Montana, Rico knows the heat is closing in - fast.Though not the first gangster picture to hit the big screen, Little Caesar is undeniably one of the genres landmark pictures.
The gangster genre by and large up to this point in 1931 consisted of mob characters behind bars, the sight of Rico about town amongst the noisy hustle and bustle surely would have depression jaded cinema goers, director Mervyn LeRoy exploits this by utilising opened the eyes and ears of the paying public.I wasn't around back then so have no on the spot frame of reference, but the professional critics point to many allegories that reside within Little Caesar's structure.
Robinson's portrayal, big bulging eyes and snappy slang phrases (this themselves must have really hit a chord with the viewersback in the day), Robinson gives the performance that so many have imitated over the years, where he probably defined the archetype in the process.It does look a little dated now, but of course that is only natural, but this is a powerful film that rises above merely being a hoodlum based piece.
From the opening scene with Edward G Robinson and Douglas Fairbanks Jr in the diner, before either gets involved in crime, this film grabs you and will keep you interested till the end.They knew how to make a picture in 1931 (but have obviously forgotten in 2007).
Take a great performance like Robinson's and run with it, keep the story going, and get to the point in something under 90 minutes.Having endured in theaters for over 50 years through numerous reissues, until VHS videos made reissues obsolete, LITTLE CAESAR will continue on DVD, on cable, anywhere classic movies are shown.
Congratulations!'Little Caesar', a superior gangster film that defined the career of Edward G Robinson.
The movie that started Warner's gangster-cycle has dated a lot since it came out over seventy years ago.The acting is perhaps a bit too hammy for modern tastes,but the performance of Edward G.Robinson still retains its power.Some of director LeRoy's storytelling devices may seem as cliche after being used in countless movies dealing with organized crime,but in the early thirties there had never been anything like it.
Robinson as Rico, a tough-minded man who is determined to make something of himself, and so he, along with his friend Joe Massara(played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) goes to the big city, where they join a gang, and Rico quickly rises to the top, taking it over, and calling himself Little Caesar.
Robinson) moves from the country to the big city in the east and joins Sam Vettori's gang with his friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks)...I have to say this was a fun, enjoyable film, and it clearly inspired many other gangster films of its era.
If anything the film was a little too quick, we do not get to establish how some events happen, like Rico and Joe just going to he big city, easily meet a gangster and then overthrow himself in the first 30 minutes.
But Little Caesar does everything it wants to put across in its short running time very well and I expect that it was made as a part of a double feature.Whilst Robinson was very good in his role, it was the role that made his career, the rest of the acting is typical of the early 30s, over-the-top with the delivery, very melodramatic and speaking in that 1930s hard boiled way.
this film charts the meteoric rise of a low level gangster to a crime boss in the underworld,and his downfall.Edward G.Robisnson Plays said Gangster.Robinson certainly is a distinctive actor,especially his voice.it certainly seems appropriate for that of a gangster.this is really the first gangster genre film from that era i have seen, and i like it a lot.the dialogue of the era is,and more specifically of the genre is certainly interesting,and somewhat amusing,by today's standards.it's hard to believe people actually talked that way and even spoke some of those words.anyway,i like the film,and would recommend it.8/10.
It was those very things that made him the premier gangster of the 30's.....and as his career matured he tempered his performances.The story revolves around Rico and his compatriots as they move up in the world......some are left behind either by choice (as with Fairbanks) or they simply are "rubbed out" as Little Caesar climbs the crime corporate ladder.
Even four years after 'The Jazz Singer (1927),' Hollywood was still adapting to the "talkies." Mervyn LeRoy's 'Little Caesar (1931)' along with 'The Public Enemy (1931)' and 'Scarface (1932)' was one of the pivotal films in the development of the gangster genre {popular in the 1930s, and later a considerable influence on film noir}, but it also suffers the pitfalls of many early sound films.
Fittingly, Rico meets his end under a billboard featuring Joey Massara and Olga Strassoff - the title - "Tipsy Topsy Turvy" - just what Rico's world had become.As one of the earliest gangster films, "Little Caesar" set a tone for the genre and led to other successful movies, most notably James Cagney's "Public Enemy".
Finally, it doesn't seem fitting that a man with Rico's sense of self importance and grandeur would allow himself to descend into the squalor of a ghetto flophouse; surely he had enough money to maintain some dignity in exile if necessary.All of this aside, "Little Caesar" merits viewing for it's impact on early film making and the creation of the criminal/gangster genre.
Warner Brothers released a slew of gangster movies in the early 1930s, films like "The Public Enemy", "Little Caesar", "Scarface" and "White Heat" laying down the template for virtually every gangster picture that followed.Born in an age of urban poverty, overcrowding, and disease, these flicks immediately proved popular with audiences.
The releases of "The Public Enemy" and "Little Caesar" gave rise to the gangster movie, which has proved, over the years to be one of the more powerful, successful types of film to be produced.These films also gave us two new "MovieStars".
But it is the gangster film for which they will forever be linked."Little Caesar" is the story of a Chicago hood who is not afraid to seize control from his criminal boss, and fight against the law to get his way, and rise to the top of the mob.
Robinson plays Cesare Enrico 'Rico' Bandello, aka, Little Caesar and the film documents his rise to the top of the Chicago underworld and his subsequent crash to a skid row boarding house.
E.G. Robinson is bad a.s.s. The first "talkie" gangster movie to capture the public's imagination, Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar started a cycle of crime-related movies that Warner Bros.
And, probably has seen the scene where Robinson says, "Is this the end of Rico?" But I had always avoided the film because I am no fan of gangster movies (or for that matter Hollywood's other obsession of the 1930s -- the lives of rich people).
Robinson) and his friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) are small-time criminals who are seeking their fortunes in Chicago, and while Rico, also nicknamed Little Caesar, joins Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields) and his gang Joe is more interested in becoming a professional dancer, and he gains a partner and girlfriend with Olga Stassoff (Glenda Farrell).
Robinson plays Caesar Enrico Bandello - otherwise known as "Rico" - a small time thug who lusts for the power that befits the crime kingpins of the city. |
tt1615065 | Savages | The movie begins with a video being shot of men with their hands tied behind their backs. An enforcer, who we learn later is Lado (Benicio Del Toro) wears a skull Lucha libre mask and runs a chainsaw.Next, there is a shot of an attractive young blonde woman named 'O' (short for Ophelia, played by Blake Lively) as she narrates in a voice-over. The love of her life is two men: Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch). To her, Ben is like warm wood, the idealistic Buddhist; Chon is steel, the baddhist. O is in a polyamorous relationship with both men, and the three live together in Laguna Beach, California in a luxurious cliff-side house for which Ben paid with cash. Ben and Chon are high school buddies. Ben went to Berkeley and majored in business and botany. Chon was a Navy Seal with tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. One day, lounging on the beach, Ben asks Chon where you can get the best weed. Chon replies Afghanistan, and during a tour there, smuggles out hashish/marijuana seeds from which Ben grows in a greenhouse, using his scientific knowledge, cannabis with a THC yield of 33%, "the best in the world." They met O when they hired her to help with managing the greenhouse. Ben is the businessman who runs the production and distribution and handles 99% of the business, while Chon handles the 1% (enforcement). Ben's philosophy is to provide what people want, but Chon is the realist in seeing the money made from marijuana. Ben does a lot of humanitarian work, and sells to marijuana clubs and dispensaries, for medical usage, but most of the money is made from selling on the street, where it goes for about $6,000 a pound.After making love to O, Chon sees on his computer an e-mail. The e-mail has a video of Lado kicking around the decapitated heads and reads: "These guys were stupid. Be smarter We need to talk." O and Chon greet Ben returning from a volunteerism trip to Africa. Chon and Ben discuss the business. Ben wants to give up the business to the Mexican cartel as he wants to go into philanthropic ventures such as making $10 solar panels, and he admits he's afraid of the cartel. But Chon argues that selling would show weakness, and once they do this, the cartel would usurp their whole lives.We see Lado and his 'gardening crew' carry out a hit. Lado accosts a middleman (Shea Whigham) in his home. The middleman pleads forgiveness and promises an even better deal than paying up. He calls El Azul (Joaquin Cosio) (Spanish for The Blue), a cartel head honcho, to connect him with Lado, but Lado shoots the middleman and has a teenage cartel-member-in-training, Esteban, shoot the middleman's wife, while El Azul is on the phone, enraging him. The gardening crew smuggles the bodies out of the house in trash bins. We learn that El Azul is a former inside man with the Baja cartel, the cartel Lado works for. The head of the Baja cartel, Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek), had a falling-out with El Azul, and now El Azul is encroaching on the Baja cartel's territory, threatening to take over her position.Meanwhile, Ben and Chon meet with Dennis (John Travolta), a corrupt DEA agent on Ben and Chon's payroll. Dennis tells them about the Baja cartel: they want Ben and Chon's market to fill a market they don't have. Dennis urges them to take the deal instead of decapitation; he reminds them that times are changing and they need to adapt. Dennis is sympathetic to them because his wife has cancer and Ben provides him with cannabis to ease the effects of her chemotherapy.Ben and Chon go to a hotel room and meet with Alex (Demian Bichir), the representative for Elena. The meeting is secretly video-recorded by Lado, with the video feed shown to Elena in her Tijuana compound.Alex lays out the deal: a contract of three years of working together, during which the cartel will learn Ben's horticulture methods while providing vast distribution networks and the operation in a safe haven on an Indian reservation that the cartel owns. (The Indian reservations are considered out of U.S. jurisdiction.) During the meeting, Chon badmouths the cartel's products by saying "I think, basically, you want us to eat your shit and call it caviar." Ben and Chon step out into balcony to discuss. We see that a formidable security apparatus, a team of Chon's ex-Navy Seal friends, who have sniper wares trained on the hotel room, backing them. Chon had planned to take out Alex and his men, but Ben talks him out of it. Ben and Chon reach a decision. They will turn over their business to the Cartel, but not join them. The cartel is not happy. (Apparently, no one says 'no' to the Baja cartel.)Fearing the consequences of their decision, Ben meets with his money guy, Spin (Emile Hirsch), an ex-Goldman Sachs banker who launders and invests the marijuana company's money. Ben wants to set up funds to disappear for three years in Indonesia. Ben, Chon, and O have dinner and discuss the plan for their new lives. Unbeknownst to them, they are being watched in the restaurant by Lado's crew. The three celebrate by getting high in their beach house and having a threesome. Lado sits in the car, spying on them. He calls Elena to update her on the situation. Elena says she needs Ben and Chon to join her for their expertise. Hearing about their living situation, she found their weakness: O.The next day, the three prepare to leave for Indonesia. O wants to do a last minute shopping trip and Chon assigns someone from the security team for her. O is driving to South Coast Plaza (an upscale mall in Orange County), but one of Lado's men intercepts the bodyguard and kills him. They tail O. In one scene, O is shopping next to a girl who is talking on a cellphone, answering her mom's questions about college life. Her mom turns out to be Elena.Returning home but not finding O, Ben and Chon hear a chime indicating a Skype call, and to their horror, see a live web feed of the kidnapped O. Elena, her voice masked, reprimands the boys for not complying with the deal. To redress the insult of the cartel's product during the meeting, Elena has Chon put a gun into his mouth, indicating she will tell Lado to cut off two of O's fingers otherwise. She almost gets Chon to pull the trigger but stops him at the last minute, telling him this will clean up his mouth.Elena tells Ben and Chon to deliver 300 pounds of their marijuana in five hours to show compliance. They get the product and race to Chula Vista. They arrive just in time despite being almost pulled over (and Chon almost having to kill the highway patrolman). Lado and his men take their car. Ben and Chon drive back in Lado's truck, which contains the suitcase of money (they paid in full, Ben and Chon note) and a cell phone. Elena calls, her voice unmasked, and tells them that she will hold O hostage for one year to make sure they comply with all of her demands. Chon argues with Ben that they have to fight to get O back -- the cartel members are savages who will kill them anyway. But Ben just wants peace and O back.Ben and Chon meet again with Dennis, who tells them about the conflict between Elena and El Azul. Chon strong-arms Dennis into getting data on Elena and the Baja cartel from the DEA. He is able to get 60 days of financial transactions, encoded onto two credit cards. Dennis also tells them that two of Elena's sons and her daughter (Magdalena), are dead. Back in their company HQ, Ben and Chon have Spin and his experts look into the financial data on the computer. From it, they trace Elena's financial routes. They figure out that one of her real-estate holdings, a trailer house, is a drop off point for the cartel's business. Ben decides on a plan to pay to get O back. He and Elena negotiate to a $13 million ransom. They decide to hijack the drop to get the cash for O's ransom, and make it look like El Azul hit the cartel.The hijacking gets underway. Wearing masks, Chon and his team of ex-Navy Seals blow up the front car in a convoy with IEDs. When the men from the trailer retaliate, an ex-Navy Seal member takes them out with RPG rockets. Chon forces the men out of the car carrying the cash by putting a grenade in the gas tank. He takes the briefcase from a man scrambling out of the car. Ben is horrified by the killings. One of the cartel members is about to shoot Ben, but Chon shoots the member in the back, spraying blood on Ben's mask. They take the money and get away. Alex and Lado arrive to assess the damage, which is 3 million dollars gone and seven men dead. Lado urges Alex not to inform Elena of the loss because he wants to recover the money and rectify the situation himself and because he fears Elena.Ben and Chon get a message to have Ben meet with Alex and Lado. Alex and Lado interrogate Ben to find out their whereabouts during the hijacking but Ben plays it cool. He insinuates that it could be Lado's men. After Ben leaves, Alex decides Ben and Chon don't have the balls for the attack. He suspects El Azul but Lado isn't so sure.We see O at the shack where they are holding her. She is being watched over by Esteban. Her living conditions are bad: one of her legs is chained to a chair, she has a bucket for bathroom and sleeps on a spring bed in a cage. She pleads into the surveillance camera and gets to talk to Elena, and begs her for some concessions. Elena asks O how long she has been using. Since 8th grade, O says, not that her mother cared. Later we see Lado feeding O a steak, and later, giving O a drug fix, and her getting high. O is also given access to a laptop to send a fabricated email to her mother so she won't file a missing persons report on O. Afterwards, Lado tells Esteban, don't look at me like that (because we see later in the movie Lado shows O a cellphone video of him raping her while she was high).Elena's daughter, Magdalena (Sandra Echevarria) is seen having sex when she is interrupted by a phone call. Her mother is on the line, informing her that she is coming to California to visit. Elena gets on a private plane to the Indian reservation in order to avoid U.S. customs. Lado will follow her later, bringing O with him. Before boarding the plane, Lado tells Esteban that he's proven too sensitive to handle the work and proceeds to shoot and kill him.Upon arrival inCalifornia, Lado brings O to Elena. Elena immediately informs Lado that she knows about the hijacking, and chastises him for not telling her. She threatens Lado, telling him to recover the money and he informs her that he didn't tell her because he was trying to get proof that Ben and Chon were behind the hijacking.Ben has Spin fabricate documents and hack into Alex's bank accounts to frame Alex as the mole to El Azul. Ben confronts Lado with Alex's dossier in an effort to take the heat off of him and Chon. To save himself, Lado visits El Azul and makes a deal to work with him.At a posh spa, Elena and O have dinner during which we learn that Elena inherited the business after her husband was killed. Her twin sons and brothers are also killed, leaving two children who resent her and do not want her in their lives (her daughter and a third son). Elena tells O she likes her, but won't hesitate to kill Ben and Chon. When O remarks that only she can 'get Ben and Chon together,' Elena scoffs, telling O that her love story has a serious problem: Ben and Chon must love each other more than O because otherwise, they wouldn't share her.Later, Lado brings Ben and Chon to see Alex being whipped. The torture is video-fed to Elena who forces O to watch once he 'confesses.' Under the threat of his family being harmed, Alex confesses to working with El Azul. He begs Elena for forgiveness, citing the names of her husband and children. Lado douses Alex with gasoline and anoints Ben to be the executioner. To go through with the falsehood, Ben ignites Alex on fire. O watches in horror.The next morning, Ben and Chon walk along the beach where they discuss the night's events. Chon tries to justify what Ben did by referring to the Dalai Lama, but Ben brushes it off. Instead, he tells Chon that during Alex's plea to Elena, Alex swore on Magda's life; meaning that Elena's daughter is alive, and that Dennis knew this and hid it from him and Chon. They make a plan that will work even faster than accumulating the money for ransom: kidnap Elena's daughter and trade her for O.Lado pays Dennis a visit at his home. It turns out Lado also has Dennis on the payroll. Lado questions Dennis on the culprits behind the hijacking and Dennis assures him it was Azul. Lado informs Dennis that it can't be Azul because he's working with him now instead of Elena. Under threat, Dennis reveals that the hijackers are Ben and Chon, but that they are going to give the $3 million to Elena and not Lado. To head off Elena, Dennis tells Lado to kidnap Magda and sell her to Ben and Chon. Dennis is incredulous to learn that Elena is on U.S. soil.Dennis meets with Ben and Chon, who chew him out for giving them away to Lado. The boys offer Dennis the $3 million they stole in exchange for Magdalena's address. They kill her bodyguard, who is sitting outside her dorm in his car, then move inside, tying up her boyfriend and kidnapping her. Wearing masks as a show, they Skype with Elena and show a shivering Magda, tied up and stuffed in an ice box. Elena meekly agrees to their demands. At the end of the talk, O informs Elena that she knew her boys would come for her. Elena slaps O, then screams at everyone to get out. She drops to the ground, rips off her wig, and breaks down.Lado and his boys take O into another room, where she is chained to a chair. Lado makes everyone else leave the room, then he shows her the video he took when he raped her while she was drugged. She spits in his face, but he enjoys it, wiping himself off on her hair.Elena's SUV and Ben and Chon's SUV meet in an open field with their hostages. On the mountain ridges, each group has their sniper team in position. Elena steps into the open with O and releases her. O runs to Ben. Ben and Chon release Magda to Elena, who is told by her daughter that she will never speak to her again. Before Elena returns to her car, she asks Chon who the rat is. Chon smiles and nods toward Lado, who blows back a kiss. Elena turns around to shoot Lado, but Lado draws his gun and shoots her first. O, who was handed a gun by Ben, makes her way to Elena and wants to kill her, but relents when she sees Elena is already dying. Elena begs O to help Magda escape. O glares at Magda briefly before hustling her to safety.A massive shootout is underway. Each group's sniper team shoots at each other, taking out some members of each team. Chon kills Elena's bodyguards and Ben and Chon converge on Lado, hiding behind the SUV. Ben shoots Lado three times in the back, but Lado turns around to shoot Ben in the throat. Lado sprawls on the ground, severely wounded. O shoots Lado dead for revenge, and erases his phone. O rushes to Ben, seeing his wound is lethal. As O cradles Ben, Chon pulls out a syringe and injects Ben, O, and then himself with drug overdoses. They die in a triple suicide. "That's the perfect ending," O narrates while looking into the sky as she dies.But wait... Rewind, as O mentions that this was just how she imagined it.What really happened, as O narrates, "was more of a fuck-up than a shootout." After Elena steps out into the open and releases O, Lado retreats to the car and drives away. A helicopter and DEA agents led by Dennis swoop in to arrest Elena. The DEA agents disarm the sniper teams and arrest everyone (including Ben, Chon, and O).O narrates as we see a montage: Dennis is grandstanding on TV about Elena's arrest and the progress on the war on drugs (Indian grounds are still U.S. grounds he says); Elena goes to prison for 30 years, while Ben and Chon, who have enough information to put Dennis away, are released after a few weeks in a holding cell after Dennis said that they were confidential informants. Lado and El Azul form a new cartel to take over the vacuum left by Elena.After their release, O says that she, Ben, and Chon all vanished. Montages are shown of them living new lives in Indonesia, Africa, and other parts of the world. A few scenes show that they continue to remain in touch and get together, but most of the scenes strongly imply that for the most part, they've all gone their separate ways-- as O narrates, perhaps it's true that three people can't all be equally in love. She says that one day, perhaps they'll return to their pot business in Laguna, but for now, they live simple, even primitive lives, like 'beautiful savages.' | revenge, neo noir, murder, violence, flashback | train | imdb | It's telling that the best scene in the entire film was between Del Toro and Travolta, with none of the three lead actors anywhere to be found, and hinted at the promise this movie squandered.
Going in I wasn't expecting it to be an Oscar winner, if you were expecting this movie to be about a Mexican cartel and not have violence in it then you know zero about Mexican cartels and that is an understatement.Funny thing was i was expecting this movie not to portray Mexican cartels in their real light, but after watching the movie, yup they are as ruthless as the movie portrays and glad Hollywood portrayed them like that instead of sugar coating the threat they pose to the world.If you are looking for a violent action movie based on an American drug ring vs a Mexican cartel well you probably have one of the better movies when it comes to that.
This actually stands for "We own you now and you know you like it." Ben and Chon don't really feel like being De-decapitated so they decide to make a go of living in a jungle somewhere until Elena (Hayeck) the ruthless lady leader of the cartel has O kidnapped.So are you over the fact that our two heroes share a girl yet?
I found Chon to be my favorite of the three because he seemed to be the only one who just wanted to actually get things done and blow up some stuff while everyone else talked and talked some more.Villains make films though and despite the awkwardness and UN-likability of some of the lead roles the bad guys were sinister, relentless and kind of funny at times.
They also share a one-of-a-kind love with Ophelia (Jennifer Lawrence was originally cast as O but she pulled out ,Blake Lively was subsequently selected , Director Stone instructed her to take firearm training for her role ; despite not being experienced at the gun range, she hit center mass in her first three shots) .
When the merciless head of the BC, Elena (Michelle Rodriguez and Zoë Saldaña were considered for the role as Elena, but Salma Hayek got the role instead) and her enforcer, Lado (Benicio Del Toro) , underestimate the unbreakable bond of the three friends, Ben and Chon - with the reluctant assistance of a dirty DEA agent - wage a seemingly unwinnable war against the cartel.
And so begins a series of increasingly vicious ploys and maneuvers in a high stakes, savage battle of wills.This thrilling film contains noisy action , lots of violence , sexual scenes , plot twists and unpleasant characters .
Acceptable protagonist trio , Taylor Kitsch as Chon , a violent and tough ex-Navy SEAl , a gorgeous Blake Lively and the best acting is given by Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a sensitive young who turns into violent one to save his girl .
I'd rather not get into the lack of any kind of convincing emoting from Blake Lively here--- (She's supposed to be afraid for her life here--and somehow its like she's barely miffed---its as if instead of her life that's being threatened its her wi-fi connection.) having read the book this was based on--the character O in the story was a lot more resourceful and a lot more crazy then Blake Lively ever suggests in the two hours of running time---would that they had cast literally anybody else in her part,just off the top of my head would Lauren Ambrose from six feet under have been considered too old???
God again if this was made like 10-15 years ago--imagine what a younger Juliette Lewis or a younger Illeana Douglas could've done with this.That's really all i actually wanted to say cause everything else was fine enough--i was kind of expecting it to be more over the top if anything given that its Oliver St one's first crime film in a little while but its definitely over the top enough to satisfy anyone looking for an over the top crime movie.
On the other hand if you want to see a good thriller that will keep you entertained and are comfortable with the topic area, drug dealing and violence, then by all means see this movie and do not be put off by the any bad reviews.As for the ending, it was changed from the book and I think for the better.
Two marijuana growers from SoCal, Chon (Taylor Kitsch) a former Navy seal and Ben (Aaron Johnson) a SoCal Buddhist hippie, get a deal from a Mexican drug cartel run by Elena (Salma Hayek) that they agree to but decide to escape the country and disappear.
The guys decide that they will take things into their own hands and savage violence ensues.The Good: The story is interesting and solid, at least from a reading it stand point, although it's a tough sale for me, living in Southern California, that with our liberal medical marijuana laws, that anyone smart, growing to sell at collectives would actually get involved in this crap.
His character that is suppose to be an ex-Seal comes off as a adolescent teenage thug, who couldn't find his way out of a paper bag.In the end I think Oliver Stone has been to wrapped up in his lovefests with Cuban and South American Dictators, and maybe smoking too much marijuana to actually put out a decent, smart movie.
Watching this one kind of made me feel sad for Mr.Stone, and miss the days when he put out good movies like "Natural Born Killers." (1994) I truly was hoping for a great movie when I saw the previews for this one but I was definitely disappointed.
Nobody else does either.So for really bad writing, directing, not having any kind of coherent style, and not quite fulfilling its action and "savagery" that it promised, the best I can give this one is a 5 out of 10, and that may truly be kind and is out of respect to Salma Hayek who shouldered this movie pretty much on her own, although Del Toro had a few tiny moments.Like my review?
Even if Kitsch, Johnson, and Lively aren't sympathetic leads the film still has memorable performances from Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro and John Travolta.
Salma Hayek was good as the conflicted ruthless widow-cum-cartel-queen-and-loving-mother role, but the woman had a lot of hats to wear in that one character as if the director couldn't decide if she was a heroine or a villain in his very disconnected film.
Lastly, I'd like to say, I wish Taylor Kitsch would be given permission to act, because from what I've seen of him in his other films, he's more than eye-candy, and without good direction, it seems like he is being limited in range, not to mention being written into a character that has little credibility.
Now, I don't know what other people's idea of the Mexican Cartel is, but the civility demonstrated here is not nearly as brutal or frightening as I'd expect it to be, especially in a film called Savages.Of course, the worst criminal here is the story.
This film stars Aaron Johnson (Kick-ass, The Illusionist), Taylor Kitsch (Battleship, John Carter), Blake Lively (The Town, Green Lantern), Benicio Del Toro (Snatch, The Usual Suspects), John Travolta (Pulp Fiction, Face/Off), and Salma Hayek (Frida, Desperado).Best friends Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) work together and sell the best pot there is.
Once they turn down the order, the cartel kidnaps O and forces Ben and Chon to work for them, but they have a plan to try and get her back.I honestly really liked this movie because it was not what I was expecting going in to it.
The "heroes" aren't good; they are just less evil than the villains; and their destiny is only guided by the whims from the screenplay, as we can see during that double ending which looks like a bad joke.However, I think the weakest element from Savages is Blake Lively's poor performance.
And I surprisingly liked Taylor Kitsch's performance; I had previously never swallowed this actor, but his work in Savages is solid, and he also has a good chemistry with Aaron Johnson.Going back to negative elements from Savages, the screenplay presents some problems of logic and structure (this film is based on a novel, so the reason of those problems could be because of an excessively condensed and superficial adaptation).
The movie I'm talking about is Savages, which stars Taylor Kitsch as Chon, Aaron Johnson as Ben, and Blake Lively as O, who are three lovers involved in an odd romantic situation.
I don't want to go through the story line but I must warn you as an avid moviegoer, this film sucks and it is totally waste of time...If it had been in the hands of Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, things might have been a little bit different ,unfortunately it is nothing but a bag full of clichés, wooden characters,a silly and a predictable plot.
I'd not heard of this movie before I watched it and had no clue about director, actors, plot, etc.That said, as soon as I started to see the ensemble cast as they appeared on screen I knew not to expect too much and was pleasantly surprised!Everything made sense to me, I felt engaged and felt that the characters (ok, the baddies) were interesting to want to find out what was going to happen...Benicio Del Toro stole the show, no question but I didn't feel that anyone was especially bad although I wasn't a fan of the voice over either!If you want to be entertained and don't mind a bit of stupidity and woodenness then I say give it a go!
the movie grabs you with amazing actors including Taylor Kitsch (Who is the next best thing in acting), Aaron Johnson (who puts on a spectacular performance), John Travolta and Benicio Del Toro (These two men put on great supporting roles), then gives you a ride that you never want to end.
Chon and Ben refused the deal and the leader of the cartel Elena (Salma Hayek) sends her right-arm in America, Lado (Benicio Del Toro), to abduct Ophelia to press the American drug dealers.
Oliver Stone manages to accomplish again with Savages what he did for the 2008 financial crisis in Wall Street 2: trivialize an extremely real tragedy that had a profound effect on millions of innocent peoples' lives with an insulting bit of self indulgence.It's the Mexican drug war this time, but it's essentially the same story.
Salma Hayek does a great job as the villain even though at points her lines get very cheesy, "I wouldn't have a problem cutting both their throats." Though the plot seems alarming, it sticks well and turns the movie into a satisfying, gritty drug dealing film.
Taylor Kitsch rinses some of the stink of John Carter and Battleship from his soiled reputation and Aaron Johnson is far from the awkward teen we saw in Kick-Ass. John Travolta makes a limited but memorable appearance as a corrupt DEA agent and his scenes with Chon and Ben are the movie's bursts of comedic relief.
The "good guys" split screen time surprisingly equally with the other side of the conflict featuring the cartel head Elena (Salma Hayek) and her chief enforcer Lado (Benicio Del Toro).
Travolta is great fun to watch as he lies and schemes his way out of every corner his character is put in.Oliver Stone directs the film with a hyperactive style that seems both reminiscent of his work in the 90's, while simultaneously mocking it.
This movie is by far one of the best films i'we seen in a long time.Oliver Stone did a remarkable job directing this.The story is smart,tens and often intelligently funny.Benicio did an awesome job as the bad guy and i cannot think anyone more suited for the role of a Mexican cartel enforcer.Salma is beautiful in a way she knows best.As a women leading one of the most brutal drug cartels in the world.She is relentless.
The two good friends who share everything are well played by Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson who are both kind of uglied up for the roles.The violence is very graphic but it's contained to certain scenes and you know when it's coming and can choose to close your eyes.
A Mexican drug cartel run by Salma Hayek makes them an offer they shouldn't refuse and the chaos ensues as O is kidnapped and the boys will do whatever it takes to get her back.Brutal violent setpieces, inspired plotting and a surprisingly original love story that makes the love triangle feel believable in the sense that if you dig a little deeper the guys love each other and O's character is just the binding material that holds them together.
The boys' marijuana is well known as the best in the market, it's so well known for being that good that a Mexican drug cartel, ran by Elena Sanchez (Hayek) and her right hand man Lado (Del Toro), wants in on their business.
So the two turn to a corrupt DEA agent (Travolta) they've done business with in the past, for assistance in getting her back.The movie is extremely violent and Del Toro makes a great monstrous villain once again, stealing the show.
There are enjoyments to be had in Stone's film, mostly from Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro and John Travolta's different takes on the human foibles of adult corruption.
Youngsters Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson and Blake Lively (who provides the useless narration) are excellent as the leading trio and Salma Hayek and John Travolta add a bit of colour in their smaller but pivotal roles.
'Savages' Synopsis: Pot growers Ben and Chon face off against the Mexican drug cartel who kidnapped their shared girlfriend.'Savages' works big time because the Screenplay is so well-written, despite its paper-thin plot.
two pot-growers/dealers, Chon (taylor kitsch), a former SEAL, now volatile and aggressive, and Ben (aaron Johnson), a business-minded botanist without a violent bone in his body, share the same girlfriend, the lovely and flighty o (blake lively).
Aaron Johnson plays Ben, a soft and peace-loving entrepreneur who owns a pot-growing business, selling some of best marijuana in the world, with his best friend Chon (played by Taylor Kitsch), a former NAVY seal veteran with a less merciful and more ruthless character who is often involved in violent confrontations against drug lords, unlike Ben prefers to live a life without violence and brutality.
Ben and Chon must come with the money to save her from the vicious drug cartel, with the help of a corrupt DEA agent Denis (played by John Travolta).This movie doesn't quite hike up the peak of Oliver Stone's previous films, but its still entertaining as it needs to be; despite some of its flaws.
The story is basically about three friends (Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively and Aaron Johnson) who end up getting in way over their head when they are approached by the Mexican drug cartel.What I liked about the movie is that it's unrelenting in its violence, with brutal scenes of torture and intense, gruesome deaths.
Twenty years ago an Oliver Stone film would be an event but the director has become wayward of late.This marks a return to form but it revisits his screenplay of Scarface too much in places aided with his kinetic camera work and filming style used in Natural Born Killers but here it hinders the flow.Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is peace loving hippy Buddhist and his best buddy Chon (Taylor Kitsch) a former soldier have developed the best type of marijuana which have made them successful in southern California.Both also share the same woman Ophelia (Blake Lively) and life is going swimmingly until the Mexican Baja Cartel demands that they join forces with them and later kidnap Ophelia.The cartel is ruthlessly led by Elena (Salma Hayek) her brutal enforcer Lado (Benicio Del Toro) wants Elena but also realises he needs to make his own moves.Ben and Chon realise they need to take on the cartel and free Ophelia and they can only do this with the help of the slippery and crooked DEA agent (John Travolta) a man who has worked out all the angles.The film is hampered by the constant narration by Lively as well as her performance which is less than lively.
Hayek, Travolta (with his natural balding hairline) Bichir and Del Toro make the most of their thin characterisations, people who are rooted to their families despite being savages.Stone makes up for the rest with his filming style with an operatic approach to violence but why were we presented with an alternate version of the climax?.
Aside from the basic information about Ben and Chon's previous lives, the plot decides to spend time telling us who in Salma Hayek's family died; something that we don't care about.Although this movie was slatted as an action film, the action is few and far between.
Savages won't trouble the Academy in February but this is Stone fairly close to the top of his game.Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) contrast each other in almost every way emotionally and in their approach to life but they are best friends, business partners and share their lives, their home and their girl, O (Blake Lively).
Then the Mexican Baja Cartel, headed by Elena (Salma Hayek) and her bulldog, Lado (Benicio Del Toro) decide they want a slice of the pie and kidnap O as gentle persuasion.Savages doesn't have anything new or profound to say about drug smuggling or the multitudinous crimes tied up in the drag trade and there's no great political slant or revelation, which is disappointing after such bold statements from Stone in the likes of JFK and Nixon.
The movie Savages centers around two best friends Ben ( Aaron Johnson : Albert Nobbs)and Chon (sounds like John (taylor Kitsch)) with different personalities.
The film is really violent and difficult to watch at times, but if you like these kinds of thrillers then you will enjoy this movie. |
tt0089606 | Mitt liv som hund | The action takes place in the years 1958-1959 in Sweden. Troubled 12 year-old Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) gets into all sorts of trouble, which bothers his mother (Anki Lidén); Ingemar does not know that his mother is in fact terminally ill. When he and his older brother become too much for her, they are split up and sent to live with relatives. Ingemar ends up with his maternal uncle Gunnar (Tomas von Brömssen) and his wife Ulla (Kicki Rundgren) in a small rural town in Småland. Gunnar and Ingemar bond over Povel Ramel's recording of "Far, jag kan inte få upp min kokosnöt".
In the town he encounters a variety of characters. Saga (Melinda Kinnaman), an assertive tomboy his own age, likes him, and shows it by beating him in a boxing match. Among the more eccentric residents is Fransson (Magnus Rask), a man who continually fixes the roof of his house, and Mr. Arvidsson (Didrik Gustavsson), an old man living downstairs who gets Ingemar to read to him from a lingerie catalog.
Later, Ingemar is reunited with his family, but his mother soon takes a turn for the worse and is hospitalized. He and his brother go to stay with their uncle Sandberg (Leif Ericson) in the city, but his wife thinks the boy is mentally disturbed. After his mother passes away, he is sent back to Småland.
Mr. Arvidsson has died in the interim; Gunnar and Ulla now share the house with a large Greek family. Gunnar welcomes him and consoles him as best he can, but the house is so crowded, he has Ingemar live with Mrs. Arvidsson in another house. Meanwhile, Ingemar becomes the object of contention between Saga and another girl. When they start fighting over him, he grabs onto Saga's leg and starts barking like a dog. She becomes upset by his strange behavior and gets him into the boxing ring. During the bout, out of spite, she tells him that his beloved dog (which he had thought was in a kennel) was actually euthanized. This, along with his mother's death, is too much for him and he locks himself inside Gunnar's one-room "summer house" in the backyard. While secluded here, Ingemar reflects on the death of his mother, the loss of his dog and a changing world. Ingemar uses the experiences of others and of his own personal loss to reconcile a life which is sometimes tough.
Throughout the film, Ingemar tells himself over and over that it could have been worse, reciting several examples, such as a man who took a shortcut onto the field during a track meet and was killed by a javelin and the story of the dog Laika several times, the first creature sent into orbit by the Russians (without any way to get her back down).
The film ends with the radio broadcast of a famous heavyweight championship boxing match, between Swede Ingemar Johansson and American Floyd Patterson. When Johansson wins, the whole town erupts with joy, but the now-reconciled Ingemar and Saga are fast asleep together on a couch. | cult, prank | train | wikipedia | This is an emotionally powerful (and sad) film about a boy coming to terms with the fact that his mother, who he loves dearly, is dying.
Everyone tries to hide what is really going on, as if "what you don't know won't hurt you", but the boy is hurting badly.There are no car chases, shoot-outs, or space aliens in this film.
This film is about real life, about growing up, and about children's sexuality.
In 1950s Sweden a 12 year old boy Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is sent to live with relatives.
With his relatives he grows up and learns how to deal with life, love, feelings of abandonment, sex etc etc.Sounds pretty obvious but it isn't.
This film is beautifully directed by Lasse Hallstrom and perfectly captures what it's like to be a young boy growing up.
That it takes place in 1950s Sweden makes no difference--all young boys go through the feelings and emotions shown in this movie.
Children on the cusp of puberty who engage in a completely unrepressed journey of sexual discovery without tilting the film into x-rating.This is a true story based on the life of a real child whose mother was a famous Swedish writer, who had a terrible temper and also died of a disease of the lungs.
Unlike most American films which say too much, are too loud and spoon feed all thinking into the audience with the assumption that we are dumb, insensitive and unable to connect the dots, this drama delights with it's simplicity, allowing the drama to come to us in an unhurried telling.
The film follows the life of Ingemar in his 12th year as he has to cope with the slow death of his mother.
When his mother can no longer care for him and his older brother, Ingemar is sent off to his Uncle who lives in a small town in which it seems that all the residents work at the glass factory, and he soon becomes part of the town's fabric.
This is a film about childhood and like most childhoods the film includes several scenes about children's growing awareness and curiosity about sex and their bodies and presents it in a real and sensitive way.
This odd little film relates the story of Ingemar, a boy who learns about life, death, loss, and practically everything else.
The boy is a charming little fellow, and all the odd people he meets are also charming in their own ways.Because his mother is dying and his father is off in some other part of the world, he and his brother are split up.
He distances himself from the pain in his life by comparing his predicaments to things he has heard about in the great, strange world beyond the little town where he lives.This is an amusing, quaint film that shows us that life goes on no matter how difficult and hurtful it seems.
"MY LIFE AS A DOG" is certainly my best film.
About each occurrences in this movie, however, I cannot describe which scene is the most impressive, the sad, or comical, because I think there is no exactly deliberate scene but just a boy's thought and life with his mother, brother, pet dog, other relative, friends, and other villagers.The very basic natural humanity is vividly presented through those people.
"Mit liv sum hund" directed by talented director Lasse Hallström is one of the reasons why I like Scandinavian movies so much.
They always have this "real" feeling without ever overdoing things like in Hollywood movies often is the case.The story is very simple and mainly because of that it all feels very real and heartwarming.
I think that is the main reason why this movie is great to watch for adults as well as children.
I wonder what she looks like now as an adult?For kids that young, I thought there was a little too much emphasis on sex, but mostly it's just natural curiosity of what the other sex looks like, and the intentions are innocent.Overall, it is a charming film with almost all (one exception: his older brother) likable people..
Beautifully filmed with characters who are so real that at times, you feel like you're intruding.
I own the film and have seen it a dozen times.First - only watch the version with subtitles.
I just came across this coming of age movie about a boy's childhood in 1950s Sweden.
I expected to change the channel but soon got caught up in the wonderful simplicity of the tale, made especially memorable by the lead performance of the boy Anton whose expressive face mirrors all of his impish thoughts.As charming as a film of this sort can be, despite the episodic nature of the telling.
Makes you examine your own childhood feelings of loneliness or rejection--and the explorations that all of us are subject to.By all means, a film worth watching.
A mischievous young boy with a Puckish smile, unusual table manners, and a sympathetic kinship to Laika the Soviet astro-dog is sent by his ailing mother to live with relatives in the country, where he discovers a town full of people even more eccentric than himself.
Director Lasse Hallstrom's popular Swedish import offers a refreshing look at the mysteries and heartbreak of adolescence, with all the charm but none of the cloying sentiment of other, similar coming-of-age films.
The rich humor is drawn around an affectionate portrait of small town life, closely observed; the pain comes from the realization that young Ingmar's bedridden mother has already passed away.
It's a memorable look at love and mortality, as seen from the innocent eyes of a boy passing through that awkward age when he begins thinking like an adult while still unable to stop acting like a child..
Lasse Hallstrom has gone on to direct some touching, funny American films (Once Around, What's Eating Gilbert Grape), but My Life As A Dog is the best of the lot.
"Mitt Liv Som Hund" or simply "My Life as a Dog" is a warming and poetic chronicle of the life of a young boy who learns about what growing up is like when faced to live with another parents after his mother's illness prevents her from taking care of him and his older brother.
The boy, Ingemar (the gifted Anton Glanzelius), narrates his distant happy memories while living with his mother and then later his future discoveries and events that changed his life.
While telling his stories he keeps comparing his life to the Laika's life, the little dog who was sent to space by the Soviet in 1957, year the movie's story starts.
Laika in the space, Ingemar on the ground with his eccentric uncles, new friends and far away from the very few people he knew: his sick mother and his brother, sent to another home.
I'd say I went into My Life as a Dog with mixed expectations.What I found was probably the most intelligent coming-of-age films I've seen.
There is an element of fantasy but nothing off-putting or tedious like so many French films (Amelie and A Very Long Engagement being two films I especially dislike).The film is set in the late 50's and apart from the coming of age theme, it deals with boxing - Ingemar something or other beat Floyd Pattersen!
-; dogs - apparently the Russians sent a dog in space without enough food and young Ingemar's dog is cruelly taken away from one at a particularly vulnerable time; and a budding sexual awakening guaranteed to rile up prudish Americans even if its innocent and unerotic.
I think some of the emotional resonance of the film comes from how truthful and warm My Life as a Dog is, there's even something very Truffautesque about it.My Life as a Dog has an evocative script, a compelling story and characters that feel real, you immediately connect with Ingemar and do so right up to the last second.Lasse Hallstrom directs beautifully, the film looks gorgeous in photography and production values, the score is haunting and Anton Glanzelius's lead performance is astonishing combining charm and wit with innocence and spirit.Overall, a truly wonderful movie.
This movie, intensely comical, but also sweet, sad and touching.It shows the life of a young boy (apparently 12 years old) who is discovering life for the first time.
It centres on the innocence of childhood and the way in which life works.It has been said that this film errs on the side of child pornography because a young girl exposes herself (just the torso) to the boy.
They are not full of moral wowsers who can't see the art for the breasts...It helps if you watch the movie for a second time, as everything is better and you notice the great subtitles placed in this wonderful movie..
I don't think that I have ever laughed as hard during a movie as when I watched "My Life as a Dog." In addition, such pathos is rarely captured on film.
I am hard pressed to think of another movie that risks the range of emotions embraced by this film.
The beauty of this film is an innocence that allows us to revisit our childhood many times.
I enjoy a great deal of Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom's films for their moving, bittersweet tone.
Still, that does not give peace to his terrified soul.With a smashing (and barking) performance by gifted Swede toddler, Anton Glandzelius, "My Life as a Dog" is a beautiful film.
While not a very deep film, 'My Life As A Dog' is a wonderful evocation of time and place, as well as a movingly constructed vision of innocence and childhood.
'My life as a dog' is such a delightful movie to watch and it will suit everybody.I first knew Lasse Hallstrom through 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape'.
Now after I saw 'My life as a dog', I find that Hallstrom is really great in making films about life.
Both films are about daily dramas on ordinary people's lives but 'My life as a dog is more fun to watch than the great but depressing 'What's eating Gilbert Grape''My life as a dog' focuses very well on the joy and sadness of a growing boy, Ingemar.
Although the words come out from a boy's mouth, they actually teach all of us something.Hallstrom intelligently bring small details to make this movie 'alive', rich and inspiringly funny.
After I had seen "The Cider House Rules" and "Chocolat", I took some interest in Swedish-born director Lasse Hallstrom, and so I decided to check out one of his movies from his native country.
This story of abandoned boy Ingemar hits the perfect balance between sentimental and gritty, with one scene that was probably there for a little comic relief (you'll know what I mean if you see the movie).
I love this movie and the Swedish films are good!!!
I really like the actors and Lasse Hallström is a really good director, ok the movie is a little bit slow sometimes but you get a really good feeling when you see it.
This movie follows the boy during the first year or two of his life with them and you get to see his first love, him playing on a soccer team, etc.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for these kinds of films, but I love this movie!
If you liked "Stand By Me" or the TV series, "The Wonder Years" I think you'll like "My Life as a Dog" too.
They really brought the movie (and their characters) alive.....showing pre-teens as they grow and experience life altering changes..
You like the film as you watch it, but you never get the feeling that it is anything more than the story of one particular boy, whose life isn't that exceptional after all.
this is the story of a boy who hits puberty when his mum is dying, and having to move in with relatives in a small country town while all the time thinking about Lakia.
P.S. I Love You. When a little boy falls through a cottage skylight window while his parents are making love during vacation his father has a heart attack and must go back into The Navy for his Health & Rehabilitation...While The Mother, The Two Sons & Family Dog are living in a Sanatorium from The Two Sons being officially declared Bastards from The Parents Naval ReMarriage, The Mother falls into Poor Health and must go into Convalescence...By this point The Main Character has replaced The Family's Love with The Family Dog's Love...Sent away for Summer Vacation during his Mother's Convalescence, The Main Character once again falls through the same cottage skylight window while watching his relatives have sex...Finally recognizing his stupidity The Main Character falls in LOVE with a Young Lesbian Girl who knows his secret...Masturbation!.
This was the first thing come to my mind after watching this movie.
A very awesome Swedish film was made about thirty-two years ago and clearly illustrates the psychological world of a seven-year-old child who, at the same time as a child, has a large inside with a lot of exterior experiences, such as displacement, separation from his beloved dog and The next two boys in the family and, of course, maternal love and hatred.
Young boy Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is living with his older brother and his seriously ill mother.
Town tomboy Saga (Melinda Kinnaman) is a better athlete than every other boys and she grows to like Ingemar.The puppy love is adorable.
This is a delightful and sad movie about a young boy who is left to fend for himself in many ways after his mother dies.
Ingemar gets back to the small town after his mother's death and is met at the train station by his loving uncle.
Even if the story is told through the experiences of a 12 yr old boy, anybody can relate no matter what age, because we all feel that hunger to be loved..
When the opening scene showed Ingemar on the beach amusing his mother with some childish antics, I was primed for a happy coming-of-age story.
He has some odd behaviors, like approaching his milk glass with trepidation as if were one of life's great challenges to drink from it.When Ingemar becomes too much for his mother to handle he is sent to a small village down south to live with his uncle's family.
Initially, it appears that young Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is merely a mischievous troublemaker, but inwardly, he harbors all the self doubt and insecurity of any young boy his age, compounded by a terminally ill mother and a brother with whom he has very little connection.
Their coming of age story is portrayed sweetly with innocence, and though the film explores sexual themes with it's eccentric characters, it does so maturely with a young person's sense of wonder and amazement..
At the end of the movie one finds out who was the dog whose life is being told.
It isn't Laika sent in space at the onset of the movie, but the little boy who identifies with his dog who was put to sleep while he was away at his uncle's place.
"My Life as a Dog" is a simple story about a 12 year old, mischievous boy, who is trying to find his way.
He has a brother that he does not really get along with, a mother who is getting progressively sicker, and a dog who gives him the love that he is not able to get from either his mother or brother.To help his mother recover, he is sent packing, off to live for the summer with an uncle, where he finds a place to fit in, and friends and neighbors who are just as "strange" and mischievous.The film is a memory, neither romanticized or critical of either the boy or his family and friends.
It simply tells the tale of a boy on the verge of puberty and the confusing feelings that he experiences.I didn't like the repetitive nature of the narration that occurs throughout the film, but I found myself drawn into the story and the characters.Lasse Hallstrom does a marvelous job of getting genuine, honest performances from all of his actors, who are all excellent.8 out of 10.
A young 11-year-old boy discovers life, death and girls.
Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) leads a simple but complex life where his mother dies young and he is consequently sent to live with his uncle.
Anton Glanzelius gives a wonderful performance as 11-year-old Ingemar, as do the rest of the cast.
She is well played by Melinda Kinnaman.This film makes reference to Laika's story a cup of times.
Just because of one scene of child nudity in a film they already think it's pedophilia.
There could have been a deeper, lost metaphor between the loss of his dog and his thoughts of his dying mother, but if so, it was either lost in translation or wound up on the cutting room floor.If you want an excellent film that tackles looming death or losing a loved one rent "Autumn Spring" or Hallstrom's better venture, "The Shipping News".
Ingemar and his brother and mother live in a shanty house slum, and his uncle's country place is only a little nicer, even if the scenery is much more wholesome.
Then there is the actor's very appearance, which has an odd, almost maniacal twinkle in his mien, akin to a young Jack Nicholson's.All in all, My Life As A Dog is a good non-Hollywood Hollywood film, albeit a deeper one, without forced emotions.
A great coming of age movie.
Throughout the movie, Ingemar, the little boy in the movie, compares the tragic circumstances in his own life to that of other peoples (and a dog), who have much more tragic circumstances, so not to be so sad about his own.
For me, it was like seeing parts of my own life reflected on frames of film. |
tt0078908 | The Brood | At the Somafree Institute, Dr. Hal Raglan humiliates his patient Mike by saying: "you're just a weak person. You must have got that from your mother. It probably would have been better for you if you had been born a girl!" On the dimly lit stage, Raglan demands a demonstration of anger, and Mike reveals angry red blotches covering his torso. The audience gasps. Raglan announces that this is psychoplasmcis; the physical manifestation of mental rage by the appearance of the welts on one's body.Meanwhile, Frank Carveth collects his nine-year-old daughter Candy from a 'Private Guest Room'. Candy wears a red coat with fur trim and hood. Bathing her, Frank finds bruises and scratches on her back. He drives to the Somafree Institute to confront Raglan and demands to see his wife Nola, whom has been committed there. Raglan refuses. Frank accuses Nola of abusing their daughter and says he will stop Candy's next visit. Raglan threatens legal action if Frank withholds a vital part of Nola's treatment. Frank then goes to his lawyer, Al Resnikoff, who tells him that Nola has a stronger legal position despite the fact that she is committed to a mental hospital. Frank says that he will do what he has to. He takes Candy to her maternal grandmother, Juliana, who seems highly strung out.Back at the institute, Raglan goes into Nola's room (play-acting as Candy) and he asks her why she hurt her daughter Candice. Raglan/Candice says: "Mummies don't hurt their own children". Nola sobs that they do. She tells Raglan that her own mother was "fucked up and bad". Raglan encourages her anger by telling her: "Go all the way through it, right to the end."That evening at Juliana's house, she investigates a noise in the kitchen. Food, juice, glasses and dishes are thrown all over the floor. She is bludgeoned by what appears to be a small child wearing a red hooded raincoat with fur trim. As Candy watches from behind a door, small claw-like hands leaves bloodstains on the banisters. The next morning at his workplace, Frank is informed of Juliana's murder. Police psychologist Dr. Birkin tells Frank so encourage Candy to remember what happened, a breakdown is possible if she doesn't remember. "These things tend to express themselves in one way or another" says Dr. Birkin.At the institute, Raglan speaks to Nola as her father. She quickly gets very angry saying: "You shouldn't have walked way when she hit me." Red welts appear on Nola's forehead as she speaks.At the local airport, Frank and Candy meet Barton Kelly, Nola's estranged father, who has come for his ex-wife's funeral. On Resnikoff's advice, Frank visits Jan Hartog, an ex-Somafree patient taking legal action against Dr. Raglan. Uncovering a row of tumors on his neck, Hartog says bitterly: "Raglan encourages my body to revolt against me. And it did. I have a small revolution on my hands and I'm not putting it down very successfully."Back at the institute, a drunk Barton Kelly arrives and is furious when Raglan will not allow him to see Nola. Meanwhile, Frank arrives at Candy's school where her teacher, Ruth Mayer, sits with her. Candy invites Ruth to dinner at her house. That evening, Ruth arrives and has dinner with Frank and Candy. A little later, Barton calls Frank from Juliana's house, saying he needs Frank's help to see Nola. Frank leaves Ruth babysitting Candy, who picks up a book to read which is titled 'The Shape Of Rage'. Raglan's book on Psychoplasmics.At Juliana's house, Barton is alone when the same small figure wearing the hooded red raincoat emerges from under his bed and batters him to a very gory death with a pair of paperweights. Frank arrives a few minutes later and finds the body. The strange-looking "child" jumps on him like some aggressive animal, clawing at him until it suddenly falls off his back to the floor and seemingly dies. Frank picks up the phone to call the police. Back at Frank's house, Ruth Mayer answers a phone call from Nola calling from the institute, who then goes in a berserk rage when Ruth answers the phone and suspects that she is having an affair with her husband.At the police station, Frank gives his statement and then meets the pathologist who performed the autopsy on the mysterious 'child creature' that attacked him where the doctor tells him that the creature died simply because: "it ran out of gas". Or more likely "its batteries expired". The pathologist points out that the creature has strange eyes, no sexual organs, and no navel. "This creature has never really been born... at least not the way human beings are born" says the pathologist.Raglan (as Ruth Mayer) speaks to Nola, Raglan/Ruth says that Frank will divorce Nola and marry her. The jealous Nola screams to leave Frank alone. When Frank gets home from the police station, Ruth leaves in a hurry. He finds Candy cowering in a corner of her bedroom after a nightmare. He tells her that the 'thing' is dead.The next morning, Raglan reads about Barton Kelly's murder. Taking a gun from his desk, he instructs his assistant, Chris, to get all the patients out of the institute. Meanwhile, Frank visits the hospital where Mike is now a fellow patient of Hartog's and is told that Nola is in fact the only patient at Somafree. Mike becomes angry about being dumped by his "daddy", his face becomes one giant red sore.Frank takes Candy to school. In Ruth Mayer's art class, two 'children creatures' in pastel coats with hoods pick up wooden hammers and beat Ruth mercilessly to a gory death. Alerted by a boy's cries for help, Frank enters the classroom to find Ruth dead, and Candy gone.At the institute, Raglan wakes Nola. She relates a dream that Candy was coming back to her, and says she doesn't feel threatened by Ruth Mayer any more. At the same time, Candy is being led along a snowy highway by the two creatures.That evening, Mike turns up on Frank's doorstep raving about: "the disturbed kids in the work shed. The ones your wife's taking care of." Frank drives to the Somafree Institute where outside Raglan pulls a gun on him, saying they'll kill him if he tries to take Candy away from them. In a long monologue, Raglan tells Frank that the child creatures that have been doing all the killing are Nola's children. "Nola is not their surrogate mother, she's their real mother." They are the Brood; the parthenogenesis 'children' of Nola's rage. Over the past year-and-a-half Nola's psychoplasmics have manifested into these children which carry out her bidding whenever she's in an angry mood. Raglan tells Frank that Candy is locked up in the attic where the Brood are being kept, and that if he wants Candy back, Frank must go to Nola to convince her that he wants Candy back to live with him. If he can do that, the Brood will be neutral so Raglan can go into the attic and take Candy, if not... the Brood will attack as long as Nola is in a rage.While Raglan waits outside the attic door where the Brood are being kept, Frank goes to Nola's room. He finds Nola rocking back and forth, wearing a white robe bathed in light. Nola wakes from her trance-like state and seems happy that he has come to see her. Frank says that he wants to be back with her. (Note: throughout the entire movie, Nola is only shown from the chest up which is apparently to hide something). At this point, Nola throws back her white robe, revealing an umbilical cord and external sac on her abdomen. The years of the welts that have appeared on her chest have merged together to create this womb outside her body as an incubator for the Brood that she produces. Frank recoils in horror and disgust.In the attic, Raglan quietly enters where all the sleeping Brood lie in their bunk beds. He finds Candy in one and picks her up to carry her out. Just then, the Brood stirs, sensing Nola's mounting anger.In Nola's room, she tears open the sac, removing a bloody 'infant' which she licks clean, as an animal might after having given birth. Frank's true feelings towards all this become apparent to Nola and her rage erupts.In the attic, the Brood finally become active, leaping on Raglan, who manages to shoot a few of them, but he gets overwhelmed and beaten to death by the Brood. In Nola's room, she angrily tells Frank that she would see Candy die then let him take her away. Upstairs, the Brood then turn their attention to the petrified Candy who runs and locks herself in the closet room in the attic, but they break through the door to grab at her. Frank attacks Nola and strangles her to death with his bare hands to save Candy when he hears the noises coming from the attic. When Nola stops breathing, all is suddenly silent.Frank goes upstairs to the attic to find all the Brood dead outside the room where Candy locked herself in, realizing that the Brood died without their mother's connection. Raglan is also dead nearby having been beaten to death and lying next to a few of the Brood he managed to kill before being overwhelmed. Candy is quivering in a corner of the room and Frank enters picks her up and tells her that he is taking her home. As Frank drives home with Candy, she seems to have withdrawn into a state of shock and cannot speak. Frank doesn't notice two raised lumps on her left arm... signs of her inner rage. The welts suggests that eventually like mother, like daughter... | cult, psychedelic, murder, violence | train | imdb | null |
tt0795493 | Cassandra's Dream | Brothers Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor), who live in South London, were raised by a weak father Brian (John Benfield) who runs a restaurant, and a strong mother Dorothy (Clare Higgins) who taught her sons to look up to their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), a successful plastic surgeon and businessman.
The brothers buy a sailboat at an oddly low price, despite its near pristine condition. They name it Cassandra's Dream, after a greyhound that won Terry the money to buy the boat. Knowing nothing of Greek mythology, they are unaware of the ominous antecedents of this name—the ancient prophetess Cassandra, whose prophecies of doom went unheeded by those around her.
While driving home from a day's sailing in a borrowed car, Ian crosses paths with beautiful actress Angela Stark (Hayley Atwell), with whom he becomes infatuated.
Terry has a gambling addiction that sinks him deeper in debt. Ian wishes to invest in hotels in California to finance a new life with Angela. To overcome their financial issues, they ask Howard for help. He agrees to help them, but asks for a favor in return: they must murder someone for him. Howard faces imprisonment for unspecified crimes and his future is threatened by Martin Burns (Phil Davis), a former business partner who plans to testify against him. Howard asks his nephews to get rid of Burns, and in return he will reward them financially. After initial reluctance, the brothers agree.
They make two zip guns, untraceable and easily destroyed. Lying in wait in Burns' home, their plan is foiled when Burns arrives with a woman. Their resolve shaken, they leave and agree to commit the murder the next day.
The next day, they succeed in carrying out the murder and later destroy the guns. Ian is content to move on as if nothing happened, but Terry is consumed by guilt and begins abusing alcohol and other drugs. His behavior frightens his fiancée (Sally Hawkins), who tells Ian about the situation and that Terry believes he has killed someone. After Terry confides that he wants to turn himself in to the police, Ian goes to Howard for advice. They agree there is no alternative but to get rid of Terry. Ian plans to poison Terry during an outing on the boat. Ian can't bring himself to kill his own brother, and attacks him in a fit of rage. In the chaos, Terry knocks Ian down the steps into the cabin, killing him.
The boat is later discovered adrift by the police, and the audience learns that Terry snapped and drowned himself after killing his brother. The last shot is of Cassandra's Dream, still in beautiful condition despite the tragedies it set in motion. | tragedy, dramatic, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
End of preview. Expand
in Dataset Viewer.
Abstract
Social tagging of movies reveals a wide range of heterogeneous information about movies, like the genre, plot structure, soundtracks, metadata, visual and emotional experiences. Such information can be valuable in building automatic systems to create tags for movies. Automatic tagging systems can help recommendation engines to improve the retrieval of similar movies as well as help viewers to know what to expect from a movie in advance. In this paper, we set out to the task of collecting a corpus of movie plot synopses and tags. We describe a methodology that enabled us to build a fine-grained set of around 70 tags exposing heterogeneous characteristics of movie plots and the multi-label associations of these tags with some 14K movie plot synopses. We investigate how these tags correlate with movies and the flow of emotions throughout different types of movies. Finally, we use this corpus to explore the feasibility of inferring tags from plot synopses. We expect the corpus will be useful in other tasks where analysis of narratives is relevant.
Content
This dataset was first published in LREC 2018 at Miyazaki, Japan.
Please find the paper here:
Later, this dataset was enriched with user reviews. The paper is available here:
This dataset was published in EMNLP 2020.
Keywords
Tag generation for movies, Movie plot analysis, Multi-label dataset, Narrative texts
More information is available here http://ritual.uh.edu/mpst-2018/
Please cite the following papers if you use this dataset:
@InProceedings{KAR18.332,
author = {Sudipta Kar and Suraj Maharjan and A. Pastor López-Monroy and Thamar Solorio},
title = {{MPST}: A Corpus of Movie Plot Synopses with Tags},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018)},
year = {2018},
month = {May},
date = {7-12},
location = {Miyazaki, Japan},
editor = {Nicoletta Calzolari (Conference chair) and Khalid Choukri and Christopher Cieri and Thierry Declerck and Sara Goggi and Koiti Hasida and Hitoshi Isahara and Bente Maegaard and Joseph Mariani and Hélène Mazo and Asuncion Moreno and Jan Odijk and Stelios Piperidis and Takenobu Tokunaga},
publisher = {European Language Resources Association (ELRA)},
address = {Paris, France},
isbn = {979-10-95546-00-9},
language = {english}
}
@inproceedings{kar-etal-2020-multi,
title = "Multi-view Story Characterization from Movie Plot Synopses and Reviews",
author = "Kar, Sudipta and
Aguilar, Gustavo and
Lapata, Mirella and
Solorio, Thamar",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP)",
month = nov,
year = "2020",
address = "Online",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2020.emnlp-main.454",
doi = "10.18653/v1/2020.emnlp-main.454",
pages = "5629--5646",
abstract = "This paper considers the problem of characterizing stories by inferring properties such as theme and style using written synopses and reviews of movies. We experiment with a multi-label dataset of movie synopses and a tagset representing various attributes of stories (e.g., genre, type of events). Our proposed multi-view model encodes the synopses and reviews using hierarchical attention and shows improvement over methods that only use synopses. Finally, we demonstrate how we can take advantage of such a model to extract a complementary set of story-attributes from reviews without direct supervision. We have made our dataset and source code publicly available at https://ritual.uh.edu/multiview-tag-2020.",
}
- Downloads last month
- 0