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papadea1953
Reviews
Savage Planet (2007)
Easily the Worst I have seen
Like others who have commented on this demented attempt at entertainment, I too was lured into watching by the promising advertisements Sci Fi put out before airing. Like the others, as well, I was sorely disappointed by everything in it. Flannery was the only saving grace, except for the hot blonde, and the director should absolutely be shot without trial and/or left on the planet as suggested by another patriot of good Sci Fi.
I too thought (what WAS I thinking!) that the "super predator" would be some "Alien/Predator" hybrid that would defy all imagining and show us another concept of extraterrestrial life. BUT A FRIGGING GRIZZLY!!! Come on Sci Fi, I have seen you do better (sometimes) and I know you guys have more than $250 US dollars in your pockets (for the bear rental) to get better computer programmers to come up with SOMETHING better than those stupid CGI's that were embarrassingly childish. Hell, my 12-year-old niece can do better than you did. You need to fire everyone who worked on that farce from the director to the best boy. No one deserves to watch that trash. The ONLY reason I watched the whole boring thing was that I had already invested 30 minutes of my time and figured I'd see how it ended. Predictably.
Your new series "Eureka".... Now THAT's what I'm talking about, humor, entertainment, and something different. If you can find the people to make THAT one up for a season, you can find someone who can make a two hour movie that is at least somewhat entertaining.
Desperation (2006)
Can't believe King did the screenplay
I have seen this movie, and I read some of the boards. I have to agree with many that this was one of the worst adaptations I have ever seen and I cannot believe that Stephen King actually let this thing go through to production. While it is true I did not read the book, if it was as bad as the movie, I feel sorry for all of you who slogged through it. This being said, I have to say that I also did not read "Misery", "Cujo", "The Green Mile", "Shawshank Redemption", "Stand By Me", ad infinitum. There were also VERY many I DID read however, including The Dead Zone, The Stand, It, Salem's Lot, ad infinitum, and EVERYTHING that I have seen before THIS (including the fore-mentioned that I did not read) movie has never been less than excellent. I believe in this whole thing I must blame the director. The director, and the producer, are ultimately the ones to blame for a movie making it or failing. Even Creepshow was better produced and directed than this thing and it was obviously on a lower budget. I found the dialog somewhat stilted and the boy a bit farcical. The religious aspect ("We must love God and Serve God", "God is cruel", "God must be everything" trichotomy) was a bit hard to stomach. I'm wondering where Mr. King is headed these days. I just hope that Stephen King comes out of his depression over this movie quite soon and gets back to his old form.
Deathline (1997)
you have got to be kidding!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has got to be the WORST Rutger Hauer movie EVER made. I have got to think that his agent is such an a**hole that Mr. Hauer needs to make some changes. Look at his filmography!!! Although many of his films really sucked, there were MANY that were fantastic. "Blade Runner" was one of his best, but I refuse to go into all the rest of his movies. Go look at his filmography. This movie is one of the worst "C" grade movies I have ever seen. The plot didn't work, the flow really sucked big time, I found myself fast-forwarding through MOST of the stupid dialog, which, upon looking at afterward, I was correct at, and the director, the producer, and anyone else who had anything to do with this movie, need to find new agents.
Grizzly Man (2005)
This Man was CRAZY
I understand the motivation of trying to understand the "wild" in human beings, but this guy's attempt was way beyond sanity. Treadwell went far beyond what humans should do. HELLO!!!! WE CANNOT LIVE WITH GRIZZLIES. WE CANNOT LIVE WITH ORCAS. WE CANNOT BE EAGLES. WE are human beings, we cannot be or become another species. Treadwell seemed to want to be something other that human. I can certainly understand that point as I see how we are continuing to treat one another today. HOWEVER, we are human. Which means we are not grizzlies, nor are we foxes, nor orcas, nor whatever species we would all like to become. For myself I would become a wolf. Go figure. It was a scary doc, but this guy took his girl into danger and unfortunately (HELLO) they got eaten by the same thing he was studying. Let this be a lesson. I would rather (personnally) have studied the foxes. As for the DOC. IT SUCKED. I've seen better.
Les Misérables (1998)
One of the best!!!
I had seen an earlier, more obscure version of "Les Miserables" many years ago, which I thought was very good. THIS particular rendition completely obscured that one. Of course this is a story of redemption. Neeson plays the role of a man who was unjustly (not wrongly, but the punishment should have been for maybe a WEEK!!!) imprisoned for 19 years for stealing food for his family. Such was the way of Europe at that time. Geoffrey Rush was WONDERFUL as the obsessed Javert, intent on putting Valjean back into prison for SOMETHING, though he could not figure out what. The scene at the Bishop's home, soon after Valjean's release from prison, was an ultimate moment, when the Bishop charged Valjean with changing from evil to good. For MYSELF only, I look at this story, along with Dumas's "Count of Monte Cristo", and Cervantes's "Don Quixote" as a few of the best classics in human literature. I can only hope that someone can make another quality film about these others. I rate this one a TEN.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
One of my TOP TEN
I saw (once again) last night "Shawshank Redemption". If I have seen it once, I have seen it fifty times and never does it ever get tiring to me. Stephen King wrote a story which becomes one of the great classic movies of all time.
"Shawshank" is a story of a wronged man who overcomes the injustices of life, love and prison to remain the true person he always was. Andy, although a solitary and enigmatic person, finds himself through an injustice which throws him into a quagmire of human refuse. In this refuse he finds a few pieces of humanity which lets him know there is hope. Red is one of those humans. Upon realizing that he is about to fall into the hell of prison obscurity, Andy releases himself and escapes from the injustice of his current "human" existence. I use the word EXISTENCE for the whole movie is a work of existential survival.
This is a movie that NO ONE should miss.
Passion in the Desert (1997)
Wow I liked this movie!
I did not expect this kind of theatre in an independent film. At first I was intrigued and then I became mesmerized. Here is the spoiler: The "IDIOTS" shot off the nose of the Sphinx and yet for so many scenes afterward, the Sphinx had a complete nose!!! Hey guys. what the hell were you thinking??? Blow off the nose, take it off on the rest of the scenes. My question here was, "Too much Ouzo?" As for the rest of the movie. I felt this was a "perfect" romance. I LOVED the thought of a feline falling in love with a human. For the rest of those humans out there who HAVE fallen in love with a cat, I honestly believe this can happen, with ANY animal, be it dog, cat, rat, or horse, or whatever. I know someone who has fallen in love with a bird! And the Bird is GREAT!!! It's a great movie but I hated the ending. I think things could have happened better but, hey, this was the Napoleon Era.
Schindler's List (1993)
A Holocaust Spectacular
If you could call a holocaust movie spectacular, then this would be the one. The Holocaust was a period in human history that should never have happened, yet it has become the most reported on in all of human history. In Schindler's List we see only a small portion of Hitler's "Final Solution", the plot to eradicate a segment of humankind from the face of the earth. We see a businessman who wants to make money out of war, dealing with a sick Nazi, who only cares about doing his duty, trying to survive a world war. Eventually we see how the Nazi mentality takes over the soldier, and how a man finally realizes the inhumanity of the regime he is serving. The fitting portion of Schindler's realization is when he holds the "Nazi Party Pin" in his hand and realizes he could have freed a few more people for that small piece of gold. This is a movie that all should watch and wonder how each one can contribute to the humanization of this world of ours.
Vanishing Point (1997)
Let's get real
Come on. Utah is known as the Bee Hive State. In the beginning, you show a license plate that shoes it as the "Monument Valley State"?????? How phony can you get?? And One of the plates actually shows "Delicate Arch" in Arches National Park. Why couldn't you do something real about THAT????? Your boys need to do a lot more research for the rest of your movies. As far as the rest of the movie. Not bad. Viggo did an excellent job in the role. I believe you could have done a lot more into why he had to go all the way into Arizona and then into Utah. The original movie did have many more "different" types of characters. For example: What happened to the black radio announcer, and what happened to the "snake" people in the middle of the desert. My opinion is that the plot should have had more of the eccentrics that were involved in the original.