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knives wrote:My rule is after a week it doesn't arrive, automatically four stars. I want it within seven days of my ordering.

Well that's hardly fair. Rate them if you must on how long it takes them to put it in the mail, and whether they notify you/provide you with tracking info, but don't penalize them for poor performance of the U.S. Postal Service (or however they've sent your order). Not to mention, shipping items from different parts of the country can take different amounts of time.

swo17 wrote:

knives wrote:My rule is after a week it doesn't arrive, automatically four stars. I want it within seven days of my ordering.

Well that's hardly fair. Rate them if you must on how long it takes them to put it in the mail, and whether they notify you/provide you with tracking info, but don't penalize them for poor performance of the U.S. Postal Service (or however they've sent your order). Not to mention, shipping items from different parts of the country can take different amounts of time.

Poor phrasing by me. They have to send it out within about seven business days, even though I admit to deducting points once when the USPS took three weeks for a Maine shipment.

So Swo17 since I just bought a copy of The General from you on half.com is it cool if I give you four stars instead of 5?

Only if I forget to include the lollipop. Be careful though--now I know where you live.

bamwc2 wrote:I know that this will come as a shock to you, but Harry Knowles's latest weekly DVD column is peppered with musings like the following:

On Braveheart:

… let’s ponder the question. Who would win in a fight. Russell Crowe’s GLADIATOR or Mel Gibson’s WILLIAM WALLACE. I have to say, I think Crowe would wipe the floor with Wallace – but Willy could beserker his way through to an impossible victory. What do you think? Willy or Crowe?

As Charlie Brooker revealed, the Deadliest Warrior show is already catering to these match up fantasies. They haven't pitted Maximus Decimus Meridius against William Wallace yet but they have done Wallace versus Shaka Zulu. Since there is no clean footage of that up on Youtube it is probably better to link to the jawdroppingly stupid and tasteless 'Taliban vs IRA - which is better?' final.

There is something highly disturbing, and extremely decadent, about the way all of these various factions and historical figures have been airbrushed clean of any sociopolitical dimension just so they can be pitted against each other gladiator style. But I suppose there was some hint of irony there that the winner is decided by who can best blow up a piece of public transportation!

Barrie Maxwell strikes again.
On In The Realm of The Senses:

Every so often Criterion makes a mis-step and its release of In the Realm of the Senses, a Japanese film by Nagisa Oshima, is one of them - an effort that does little more than give foreign film a bad name...This is the sort of film that critics like to analyze to death trying to justify the images on the screen in the name of art.

On 2010:

The resulting film, originally released by MGM in 1984, is a very effective sequel and a more interesting experience in terms of its compactness and lack of pretention than 2001.

colinr0380 wrote:As Charlie Brooker revealed, the Deadliest Warrior show is already catering to these match up fantasies. They haven't pitted Maximus Decimus Meridius against William Wallace yet but they have done Wallace versus Shaka Zulu. Since there is no clean footage of that up on Youtube it is probably better to link to the jawdroppingly stupid and tasteless 'Taliban vs IRA - which is better?' final.

I thought of Brooker when I read that too - it's a shame You Have Been Watching's exposé of the monumentally tasteless Michael Jackson/Princess Diana funeral playoff on ITV doesn't seem to be up on YouTube. This was a legitimate news programme actually awarding points to the two funerals to judge which one was more spectacular, whose coffin was more 'bling', who had the best celebrity guests, etc...

Btw – is there a hotter cartoon fuck than Frazetta’s Teegra?

Pssshaw, I bet Teegra never gave her boyfriend(s) a 'fuck me' look like Nala gives Simba in The Lion King. (And that was a G-rated Disney flick, not an anything-goes Bakshi epic!)

Frida's Eyebrow, October 1, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Frida (2002) [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I had a hard time concentrating on the movie - I kept wondering if she had just one long eyebrow or if she connected the two she had with a pencil. Nobody else in the movie had eyebrow(s) like that. I didn't know anything about Frida but I did learn who she was; her paintings were eerie and I just did not enjoy anything about the movie.

At least they learned.

Unibrows are really distracting though. Not enough to write off an entire movie, but yeah

But would it have made more sense for him/her if everyone in the film had unibrows?

Nobody else in the movie had eyebrow(s) like that.

Unibrows are contagious, you know.

Feego wrote:Unibrows are contagious, you know.

"Oh no, I've got the unibrow!"

On the subject of misdirected star-ratings, this from a Netflix Touch of Evil renter:

Well, been at this for 40 minutes now. I was going to write a good review for this, but apparently you can't have more than 2000 characters. Which I give a review of 1 star for not being allowed more. I edited it, and edited it, and I know for sure I was under the 20000 character limit, but oh well. You get the condensed version. Besides Orson Welles' superior acting the rest are horrible, the dialouge is just silly, and it's horribly written. Only gets 2 stars because of Orson's acting. Sorry I couldn't write more for you. I got tired of editing my GOOD review.

I just found this on buzzfeed. I find it cute, but not the work of genius that the poster their makes it out to be.



I also find it truly amazing that any Will Smith movie would get over four stars even on netflix.

The Slowest Films of All Time part 1
Andy Warhols's Empire, understandably
but also, Tideland, The New World, etc.

The Slowest Films of All Time part 2
Seventh Seal, Au Hasard Balthazar? huh...

I think I'm most offended by the idea of Breathless as a romantic film then anything else, that or Barry Lyndon in the tedious pile. I'd say that one is actually fast paced Kubrick, at least compared to The Shinning. Also I couldn't be offended by that second part which does call the films Marvelous. Those films are reasonably slow paced after all.

Out of all scenes from Barry Lyndon, they pick the tensest and fastest moving scene where the whole time you have a lump in your throat awaiting the outcome. Maybe I have the patience of a saint, but it hasn't been since my early years of studying cinema where my critique of a film would be "it moves to slow".

And what the hell does "stupefyingly ponderous" mean? And how is Empire "The Bourne Ultimatum of it's generation—had The Bourne Ultimatum been filmed inside a vacuum cleaner for eight hours with the lens cap still on"? I've never read Paste magazine, but this article is a joke.

Oh, and knives, from the people I have met that watch Breathless, they don't watch it as a classic film or the stunning cinema it is, but more as a cute little postcard from late-fifties France with a kiss on the back. It's sickening almost. Remember that commercial for that failed side airline American Airlines tried starting that used Breathless in the commercial? That's how people treat the film. It truly is a goddamn shame.

Jesus, this Paste article put me in a bad mood.

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote: Oh, and knives, from the people I have met that watch Breathless, they don't watch it as a classic film or the stunning cinema it is, but more as a cute little postcard from late-fifties France with a kiss on the back. It's sickening almost. Remember that commercial for that failed side airline American Airlines tried starting that used Breathless in the commercial? That's how people treat the film. It truly is a goddamn shame.

I'm not familiar with the commercial you're referring to, haven't watched teevee in over five years, but i think I get the point, the sad sad point, you're making. I guess if there's even an accidental ounce of sexual tension in a movie people will jump on it as a romance. Tsk.

Jesus, this Paste article put me in a bad mood.

I can tell.

I rarely watch TV too, but I remember seeing it in this Frontline documentary.. And it was Delta Airlines, not American. My mistake.

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote: I've never read Paste magazine, but this article is a joke.

Paste itself is pretty much a joke.

I really don't understand why The New World is so often accused of being slow. I just watched it for the first time the other day (in the Theatrical cut) and though I have my issues with the film, speed is not one of them. If anything, I felt many shots ended abruptly and prematurely, that the editing was often choppy, and that the film didn't have enough space to breath. It seems to me simply a case of Malick's reputation preceding him, and viewers falling back on the usual criticisms of his work as a whole rather than the problems of an individual film.

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:I rarely watch TV too, but I remember seeing it in this Frontline documentary.. And it was Delta Airlines, not American. My mistake.

That was a bit unexpected. That commercial was less offensive then the article because they were just using an image with no real reference to its source. Still funny to see people treat Breathless like that.

The Good German

The one thing I would have liked to know before purchasing this movie was the use of the "f" word, plus the plot was thin. I was disappointed in this movie for the simple fact of the language and find this word to be soooo offensive. I also find this to be a juvenilistic approach to making a movie. Can't the actors act without using this kind of language. If they had wanted to make a movie in the old style maybe they should have paid attention to some of the old movies. I just watched "Twelve O'Clock High" with Gregory Peck which was great and no offensive language, the actors and the plot stood on their own.

Twenty years ago, I realised a relationship was probably doomed when we went to see Do The Right Thing and she told me afterwards that she was really offended by the swearing.