'Rediculous' Customer & Critic Reviews

[bainbridgezu]

While trying to find a copy of Don't Look Now at a nearby library or video store, I stumbled upon this gem:

The scariest thing about this movie was the moment you thought you might catch a glimpse of Donald Sutherlands male parts.

That is the full review, reprinted in its entirety. Six out of eight people found it "Helpful."

[MichaelB]

A disappointed A Bigger Splash purchaser vents his spleen on Amazon:

I wish I had waited for reviews before pre-ordering.

If you think this is about art forget it. Its all about Homosexuality.Parts disgusted me which made me fast wind blatant homo sex and naked men scenes,and looking and talking about young men....What utter trash.

Two observations:

1. It's a film about a well-known gay artist and features a nearly naked man on the front cover.
2. Why do you need to "wait for reviews" of an already widely discussed film that came out in 1974?

Currently, 1 out of 36 people find the review helpful.

Still, there's a happy ending - he had a much better time with Shell and Vanessa Laid Bare:

Two very sexy young ladies who are making the most of their 5 minutes of fame after Big Brother.My thoughts on Shell is that she is a very sexy and educated lady. A good watch to raise your blood pressure(lol) Their closeness leaves me with a conundrum about their sexuality.ARE they lesbian lovers or just playing up to the cameras? I leave you to work that one out.

[Calvin]

Glowing review for The Conformist. It's not ridiculous (other than the use of ALL CAPS WHICH REALLY BOTHERS ME, WHY DO PEOPLE INSIST IN USING ALL CAPS?!!?!?) but he does try to pass off the Raro Blu-Ray as 'PERFECT' in the comments. What I was interested in is his comments about Rocco - is the MoC edition really cut despite advertising itself as cut?

Also, this 5-star review for The Human Centipede II is a bit worrying...

Best film EVER. Martin is my hero. Everyone must watch this film, pure genius. Can't wait for the 3rd...apparently they've started making it?

[colinr0380]

So apparently this 'Shell' is a "very sexy and educated young lady" yet the presumably more educated (and at least twice as sexy) Hockney does not get praised at all?

The most frightening thing (or most exciting) for Calvin's commenter is that the third Human Centipede is going to feature both Dieter Lasar's mad scientist and Martin teaming up. Plus Tom Six in an acting role!

[Calvin]

I'm envisioning something along the lines of Abbott and Costello Meet The Human Centipede for some reason.

[MichaelB]

I still haven't got round to watching my checkdisc of The Human Centipede II for some inexplicable reason.

[domino harvey]

I still haven't got round to watching my checkdisc of The Human Centipede II for some inexplicable reason.

That it's the Human Centipede II?

[MichaelB]

Well, apart from that.

[matrixschmatrix]

I take a certain pride in my commitment to my growing knowledge of cinema. I make it a rule that, no matter how awful a film may be, no matter how poorly made or terribly acted or insufferably dull, I will see it through to the end. Most people will habitually turn a movie off after 20 minutes if it doesn't float their boat, but not me. Of the thousands of films I have seen, many of which were truly bile-inducing, I have only ever turned a movie off twice in my life. This was the second time.

The fact that this is hailed as a "masterpiece" and "one of cinema's greatest achievements" is truly astonishing. Along with Herzorg's "Aguirre, Wrath of God" and Fellini's "Amocord", Pasolini's "Gospel" is one of the truly abhorrent works of world cinema. I spend my life defending "art-house" cinema against its detractors who claim that it's pretentious and self-indulgent. This is truly one of those films which gives all of world cinema / art-house cinema a bad name.

Where to start...? Needless to say, one cannot really lay any blame on the screenplay. Here we have one of the most fascination, stirring, important, enduring and influential stories of all time, without which we would have no Man with No Name, no Star Wars, no Harry Potter. I can honestly say I've seen pre-school productions of the passion which moved me more than this. In fact, the most astonishing thing about this film is that it manages to make you not care about Jesus' life or death at all.

The acting is staggeringly bad. The guy who plays Jesus looks the part, but he has one facial expression with which to communicate the entire range of Jesus' experience. One facial expression for the whole movie. Seriously, this guy makes Steven Seagal look like Laurence freaking Olivier. In spite of his oak-like demeanour, Pasolini's Christ manages to come off as angry and intolerant, rather than divine. He shouts, he condemns, he dictates. This is hardly surprising, given Pasolini's radially political sensibilities, but did he have to make Jesus look like a jerk just to appease his own malcontented frustrations?

The actors playing the disciples, admittedly, have greater range, though not by much. Typically, their expressions range from confused to bemused. What's worse, they look like a bunch of Italian rent boys; all designer stubble and greasy hair. One of them has more wax in his hair than Elvis, which is fascinating given that the film is set 2000 years ago.

This brings me to one of my biggest problems with this film; the countless anachronisms. Costume design is all over the place - no two people look like they come form the same period or region. The music used ranges from traditional Congolese songs to Negro-spirituals to European Baroque choral music. Many critics lauded this "eclectic" use of costume and music. For me, hearing Odetta singing "Motherless Child" while I'm looking a Jesus clearly in his mother's arms while she wears Byzantine-era clothing is plain stupidity. Frankly, it's also a bit of an insult to the song, which is about black children who were taken from their parents as infants to be slaves. Is Pasolini comparing the plight of the Jews to the plight of early slaves in America? Frankly, based on the evidence so far, that would be giving him way too much credit.

I am also confused as to the presence of a female angel, since none are ever mentioned in the book of Matthew or any other book. This wouldn't bother me per se, were it not for the fact that, this glaring error notwithstanding, Pasolini deliberately stuck to the gospel verbatim, even going as far as to use no dialogue aside from that found in the book of Matthew. For this, the film suffers even more. I hardly think Matthew was worried about the book's validity as a screenplay when he was writing it, so this pious insistence on sticking to his words is absurd, and totally out of keep with the other "stylistic" choices the film makes, namely the rampant anachronisms.

Continuity and sound-dubbing are hilariously bad; one of my favourite moments is when we see a man playing with his baby. The baby looks annoyed and grumpy, yet the image is complimented with the classic baby- giggling effect you get in diaper commercials. When Jesus is a baby, Mary is played by a girl who can't have been more than 15 years old. When Jesus is an adult - some 30ish years later - Mary is played by Pasolini's mother, who was almost 70 years old at the time. Are we supposed overlook the fact that Mary has bizarrely aged 55 years? If so, why? What is Pasolini's point in using his own mother as the mother of Christ? Surely an atheist, Marxist homosexual would have no desire to compare himself to Christ... Frankly, I don't care enough to think about it.

The camera operator was clearly either drunk or a child. On at least two occasions he pans to an empty space before clumsily fumbling up or down toward the person or thing he was supposed to be filming. One has to wonder, why on earth didn't Pasolini simply do another take? Was he in a hurry? I can only deduce that he was, as the whole film is made in such a slap-dash way, it's as if he simply didn't care what ended up on the screen. And there we are again, not caring. Pasolini has managed to make me completely indifferent to what is supposed to be the most moving story ever told.

Put simply, this film is an abomination. An insult to Jesus, and insult to cinema and an insult to anybody who has two-braincells to run together. Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!

[Lemmy Caution]

Is that a parody?
He seems to catch what's going on just fine -- but then is repulsed by it.

Now I want to read his review of Amarcord.

[Drucker]

I saw that yesterday, and almost posted it. He gives almost every Bond movie he's seen 5 stars. Also loves When Harry Met Sally

I feel it is worth pointing out here that Reiner's other movies of the time have equally outlasted much of Hollywood's output. 'Satnd By Me', 'This Is Spinal Tap', 'The Princess Bride' and 'Misery' - films that could scarcely be more different in style and tone - all remain bonafide classics. One has to wonder what went wrong...

All things considered, it's hard to think of another film from this era of film-making as satisfying and consistently enjoyable as 'When Harry Met Sally'. The fact that this is a romantic comedy made at the tail end of the worst decade cinema has ever known, is all the more reason to commend it.

Again, it wouldn't be so bad I suppose if the reviewer wasn't touting his/her 1000s of-movie-I've-seen-knowledge.

[matrixschmatrix]

I enjoyed the veiled homophobia ("Surely an atheist, Marxist homosexual would have no desire to compare himself to Christ...") and the fact that evidently one of Jesus' greatest gifts to the world is being a model for Harry Potter.

[Brian C]

Why give this guy such a hard time? He's spent his life defending art-house cinema from its detractors! What have you all done for me lately????

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, this friggin guy- on the Arrow Conformist blu-

Then imagine my horror, disgust and utter heartbreak when I put this disk in my player. I sold my R1 DVD when this release was announced, so I can't be sure, but I'm almost certain that both the video and audio were infinitely better than they are here. The video is a small step up from VHS and the audio is overwhelmingly awful, largely due to the low-end hum which is present throughout the entire film. I remember being quietly impressed with the DVD, but then my expectation may have been different.

[Drucker]

Why give this guy such a hard time? He's spent his life defending art-house cinema from its detractors! What have you all done for me lately????

This dude also seems to think The Main Ingredient is the best Pete Rock CL Smooth album. Crazy strokes for diffrn't folks!

[eerik]

Haha, this friggin guy- on the Arrow Conformist blu-

Then imagine my horror, disgust and utter heartbreak when I put this disk in my player. I sold my R1 DVD when this release was announced, so I can't be sure, but I'm almost certain that both the video and audio were infinitely better than they are here. The video is a small step up from VHS and the audio is overwhelmingly awful, largely due to the low-end hum which is present throughout the entire film. I remember being quietly impressed with the DVD, but then my expectation may have been different.

I have no idea what the hell did he "review" because it was posted in January 2008.

[matrixschmatrix]

Huh, double weird- his title is 'Blu-ray version' and he specifically mentions Arrow, and the review is posted on the blu's page (though that's obviously not too meaningful, as amazon just moves reviews around to wherever.)

Nobody wanted this release to impress more than I but, frankly, Arrow should be ashamed that this release was allowed to hit the streets. Let's just pray that a US blu-ray release (in a perfect world, Criterion) is slated soon.

Also, Criterion didn't actually start releasing blus until the end of that year- maybe the date just posted incorrectly?

[domino harvey]

You can edit reviews on Amazon-- no doubt he did just that to update his thoughts in relation to the new Blu-ray

EDIT: Internet Wayback Machine confirms my suspicions. Previous version of review for the R1 DVD, retrieved in May of 2010:

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best movies ever made, 10 Jan 2008
By James the King (...under the stairs) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Conformist [DVD] [1970] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] (DVD)
Sweeping statement my title may be but, in this cineaste's humble opinion, The Conformist is indeed one of cinema's most impressive and accomplished achievements.

Bertolucci has always been a hit-or-miss director for me. His first film, La Commare Secca, did not impress me. His next, Prima della Revoluzione, is a wonderful film. This is the guy who managed to make The Last Emperor but also made Little Buddha. He was also responsible for The Sheltering Sky and Last Tango in Paris so, for my money, the pros outweigh the cons. The Conformist, for me, is his masterpiece.

The story involves a man who works for the Fascist police in 1940's Italy, not because he believes in the cause but because he wants to create "the image of normality". From this simple idea, Bertolucci and Alberto Moravia (whose novel was the basis for the script) weave a masterful psychodrama about mankind's inability to think for himself.

Vittorio Storraro's cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking in terms of its capacity to mirror the protagonist's mindstate, and Jean Louis Trintignant is a miracle in the title role.

Cinematically, sociologically and politically, this is one of the most important films ever made. It is also a journey of personal discovery that is far from easy, but is possibly the most rewarding cinematic experience I have ever been lucky enough to have.

I waited for years for a DVD to be released and was ecstatic when this issue hit the shelves. Despite claiming to be an extended cut, this release is in fact the film as Bertolucci made it. One scene was cut for the original American release but has been reinstated for this DVD.

Cited by the great Andrei Tarkovsky as a masterpiece of political cinema (though he was considerably less complimentary about Bertolucci's next film, Last Tango in Paris), this is an invaluable piece of art which deserves to be seen by anyone and everyone with the capacity to fully embrace it.

[Hopscotch]

Amazon.co.uk customer on Kozintsev's King Lear:

When I obtained this version of King Lear, my expectations were very low. First of all, Shakespeare is an absolutely horrible playwright, completely missing the mark on his analysis of humanity. Second of all, the "art" of the motion picture is a bastard art, with no substance or sense of reality.

This production defied those expectations. I dumbfounded at the legitimacy of its depiction of a relationship in the post-spatulaic era. And the Orwellian/Spielbergian/Smithsonian/Tomcruisian/Startrekkian references wowed me. Who knew such base people could be concious of such a frigate of thinking.

The camera work brattified me. I was so sprasked by how it portrayed a world of Art nouveau hopelessness. What craftiessianess!! My heart palpitated!!

But then I realized half of the emotions and words I was thinking weren't legitimate, that I was making them up merely to sound intellectual and, in an Aldoushuxleyesque sense, like a film critic.

When it comes down to it, this is an great movie/play to watch. The language is beautiful, and the story is interesting. Simple as that.

[Michael Kerpan]

The King Lear review must be a joke. Brattified?

[MichaelB]

It's obviously a piss-take - the writer admits this himself!

If you need any evidence, how can this line...

But then I realized half of the emotions and words I was thinking weren't legitimate, that I was making them up merely to sound intellectual and, in an Aldoushuxleyesque sense, like a film critic.

...be interpreted any other way?

[The Narrator Returns]

This reviewer had a lot to say about Ikiru, Akira Kurosawa, and the quality of acting in Kurosawa movies:

This review continues my recent assault on particular cinematic themes that annoy me incessantly, and therefore require a therapeutic purging via an extensive (and scathing) IMDb review. The topic in question here is Akira Kurosawa - hereafter referred to as the "lesser" Kurosawa, primarily because when one hears the name Kurosawa one should immediately think of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is superior in almost every respect to this "lesser" Kurosawa, a director artificially propped up on an undeserving pedestal by a group of disillusioned followers. Sure, he had one solid film in Seven Samurai (1954), but every time I see his other movies I wonder how the hell anyone could think that this guy was a great director. It befuddles me, even though I am a huge fan of other directors from the same time period.

My primary problem with the "lesser" Kurosawa is his indisputable ability of getting the absolute worst out of his actors and actresses. In Ran (1985) Tatsuya Nakadai (who played Lord Hidetora) contributes a series of embarrassingly overacted moments during any and all scenes where strong emotion is required. In Hidden Fortress (1958) Misa Uehara (Princess Yuki) gives one of the worst performances of the 1950s. Even Toshiro Mifune had a truly ineptly performance in Rashomon (1950). In Dreams (1991) almost everyone stinks the place out. Ikiru (1952) continues the track record for this "lesser" Kurosawa, because Takashi Shimura (who plays Kanji Watanabe) is quite simply horrible in this film. He basically has three modes of facial expression:

1. Wimpering Crybaby Mode. 2. Sad Puppy Dog Mode. 3. Hallucinogenic Mode.

I'll leave it to the viewer to identify the specific instances where each of these modes are employed by Shimura, but I simply cannot help but comment on #2 above. During Sad Puppy Dog phases, Shimura's face lengthens and his eyes bug-out to make even fruit-flies jealous. Basically, he looks like a 3-year-old after being scolded, not a person of sufficient maturity enduring pain or suffering. He doesn't react to situations like any grown man would. In fact, the Watanabe character is so devoid of basic humanity that he comes off as a stand-in for Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I'm not kidding when I say that Shimura's facial expressions make Ikiru both unintentionally hilarious and infuriating. I literally wanted to strike him with a blunt object or stick needles in his eyes just so he'd stop staring pathetically at me through my television screen.

This whole situation ruins the entire film. The crux is that even a mediocre director should have prevented this by instructing Shimura appropriately. This "lesser" Kurosawa was apparently incapable of understanding the concept of "overacting", so he let Shimura ham it up for 140 minutes. You can almost hear this "lesser" Kurosawa behind the camera:

"You're a puppy dog, Takashi. You're a puppy dog. Show me those puppy dog eyes!"

It's no wonder why George Lucas found "inspiration" from the "lesser" Kurosawa's works, since Lucas practically perfected the "art" of getting the absolute worst out of his actors, regardless of how good they perform when not under the "influence" of good ole George.

Like many of the other works by this director, Ikiru is about an hour too long. Watching Watanabe go clubbing for 60 minutes was totally unnecessary. The very thin premise was stretched out for so long that I was reminded of Peter Jackson, who needed 600 minutes to tell one of the most basic, formulaic stories in the history of cinema. The "lesser" Kurosawa could have trimmed the first half, but in all honesty it would have only made this agonizing cinematic experience shorter, not better. Since the lead protagonist had the reason and intellect of a 3-year-old, there wasn't much in the way of potential development, and what little occurs comes from out of nowhere. The entire maturity of Watanabe is expressed in a segment spanning a few measly minutes, when he goes to work with zeal and runs out the front door to help the people. Kurosawa - in his infinite stupidity - then chooses to cut the sequence off completely, only to then shoot ahead half a year in time to show a bunch of politicians reminiscing about Watanabe's tasks for 45 minutes. There is simply no way that the viewer can relate to the revelatory happiness of the main character through the third-person conversations of characters that had a combined screen time of only a few minutes previously. It's a total miscalculation on the part of the director who takes the cheap way out with an abhorrently overrated "swing" scene in the snow. Yes, the scene is pretty, but it simply cannot substitute for a lack of character development that essentially occupies 5 total minutes out of a 140-minute film. And no, I refuse to count 30 minutes of puppy dog glances as character development.

The mediocrity of this much-loved "lesser" Kurosawa is even more evident in the fact that other, greatly superior dramatic directors like Yasujiro Ozu were making fantastic films like Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953) - films that make Ikiru (1952) look like amateur hour at best, because they have everything lacking in this film - great acting, storyline, and character development with believable, realistic performances. It's a travesty that exceptional directors like Ozu must live in the shadows of a lesser director that was lucky enough to be admired by a few tasteless Californian bloodsuckers.

It's almost humorous that the "lesser" Kurosawa came out with Ikiru in the time period in-between Ozu's films mentioned above. We can safely call this a crap sandwich.

To be fair, the same reviewer reluctantly admitted in his High and Low review (which he also didn't like) that he wouldn't necessarily classify Kurosawa as "a no-talent assclown."

[Michael Kerpan]

This reviewer had a lot to say about Ikiru, Akira Kurosawa, and the quality of acting in Kurosawa movies.....

I think I recognize the writer of this. If it is who I think it is -- he loves a wide array of Asian films (new and old) -- but Kurosawa drives him up the wall.

[matrixschmatrix]

a director artificially propped up on an undeserving pedestal by a group of disillusioned followers

somebody doesn't know what 'disillusioned' means

[Michael Kerpan]

a director artificially propped up on an undeserving pedestal by a group of disillusioned followers

somebody doesn't know what 'disillusioned' means

Oh -- I suspect the writer knew -- he was just so carried away by rant mode that he goofed up. I've tried to get him to walk back his more extreme AK remarks -- but to no avail. ;~}