The high points of the movie show that Allen will always be able to take themes and material he has worked with countless times before and make them feel fresh. The structure and flow in the middle section are this movies only true struggle but considering the narrative style this story takes on, it's actually quite impressive just how well rounded and satisfying it ends up being when it ends. Woody Allen has a number of films that have been misjudged, misunderstood, and flat out overly criticized throughout the years and this one certainly falls into that category. He has a remarkable talent for making you feel, think, and laugh all while enjoying a story with interesting parallels that act as a vessel for any of the things I just mentioned.
What I get out of Eraserhead: To me this movie is about the expectations we put on our own lives and how that leads us to believe our lives aren't satisfying. The biggest things that lead me to think this way about the film would be that Henry's child is not what anybody would expect and he is unprepared for that and seeing as how the film opens with what appears to be the creation of (a) life (Lynch style), I believe that Henry's child is meant to represent his life as a whole. On that note I think when Henry cuts the clothe his child is in and discovers that the clothe was actually the only thing keeping it together...What this means is Henry decided to examine his life but when doing so he discovered that ignoring all of the ugliness in his life, it was in a sense protecting him, and now that he undid all of that he stabs his child to put it out of its misery, this represents Henry's urge to end his own life because he sees that he can't put it all back together again and as the last shot is him greeting the lady in the radiator who sings to Henry earlier in the film "In Heaven everything is fine" I believe Henry chooses to kill himself. Another way to look a this would be that the lady in the radiator is just a symbol of hope and that after Henry examines the dark parts of his own life he finds hope for the future. Regardless I think this is all about expectations because the film is riddled with unexpected pieces that are meant to instill all sorts of emotions. In the beginning we expect the elevator to close but it doesn't for a long time, it just holds there (Which is Lynch humor), the chicken bleeds which is not expected and it disturbs us and in an entirely different kind of example the lady across the hall definitely represents some sort of ideal that Henry strives for and when he gets her it again does not turn out as expected. I think there's other ideas explored in other stranger passages but I think the main idea, or at least what I got out of it was that expectations cause our lives to be worse than they are.
This movie stinks. The use of double voice over is a clear sign that this movie was struggling to find a narrative voice. It is flat out boring and beyond predictable. Scorsese really wrings the last drops out of his crime wash clothe here and holy shit is it a pain to sit through. The first thirty minutes consist of nothing but De Niro and Pesci explaining things to you through narration (an Pesci sucks at narration). I really like Goodfellas but I absolutely think this movie is garbage. One of Scorsese's worst movies.
One of the best pieces of schlock you'll ever see. For the people who feel only the end is over the top and goofy...May I remind you of the fire works shot where De Niro is spread out in that pose on the wall with a HUGE and I mean RIDICULOUSLY HUGE fireworks display going on right behind him for no real reason. The whole movie is filled with great unintentionally(?) funny moments like this and Scorsese experiments with the camera in ways that simply do not stand the test of time. Don't get me wrong, I love this movie but it is absolutely ridiculous and demands to not be taken seriously.
Heard nothing but good things and had been looking forward to this for a while, sadly though I thought this was downright awful. The idea is very interesting but unfortunately the movie does little more than make me think this idea would have been more effective in a short film. First off this thing looked low budget throughout, the acting on both our leads I thought was laughably bad and I did in fact laugh more than a handful of times. The other big gripe I have with this movie is the pacing, I felt the set up dragged a bit, the middle was rushed, and the end subsequently felt entirely too long and the very end had me rolling my eyes to no end. One last gripe is these characters never feel like anything more than personified grief. There's no substance to them beyond their emotional problems and it doesn't make them likable or relate-able so when shit hits the fan and the obvious connection of what the Babadook is supposed to represent starts to smack you in the face even more it just bored me, and the sound design of the babadook was really cheap and boring. Terrible execution of a good idea.
This movie is really fucking weird...Like if just a few plot points early on had been slightly changed and the tone of the movie was more straight up dramatic instead of existing in this place between drama and awkward comedy. It's so dis-servicing to the ideas to never fully commit to how dramatic the material could have been by making really bland, predictable jokes that are also not even fully committed to in their own right. The acting is never as over the top as the joke needs it to be...It's such a weird watch.
It's a solid film but in terms of the accuracy it's a bit of a stretch. Nowhere near the amount of physical altercations occurred in the real experiment and the movie escalates to a point where it is a little too far fetched for me but overall it is a good watch. Just understand the material is dramatized to the max.
A terribly bland movie with some beautiful establishing shots that are meant to mirror that of a painting and for what it's worth I did enjoy simply admiring the beauty of these shots for the first 45 minutes but the effect wares out on you and eventually you realize you're watching a movie with no soul. Burton seems to have forgotten how to inject life into stories or portray characters in a realistic and empathetic way. Maybe he just picks crappy scripts to work with or maybe he doesn't really care that much anymore and simply enjoys crafting the look of films. But either way it's incredibly predictable, until the end when it devolves into a laughable thriller for 10 minutes but that twist isn't making this viewing experience more engaging, just further losing the grasp it has on the audience. Amy Adams is always good,but Waltz is actually laughably over the top at times which you could say is his character but it's still too much for me, especially towards the end. Anyways this movie is entirely forgettable minus the pretty images Burton manages to squeeze in here, but like I said that gets old pretty quick. 5/10
This movie is wasted potential. Phillip K. Dick is a genius when it comes to sci fi, but Spielberg is not and this brings the movie down considerably for me. I absolutely hate the way he does the future. It is so sterile and boring and the way he uses light in them is absolutely atrocious and brings this incredibly cold atmosphere to a project that does not resemble this tone in either story or design. The only interesting thing in this movie comes from Dick and it is never explored. Such an interesting premise and they used it as a backdrop for a predictable and ultimately overly long thriller. This movie should have been exploring themes of what it means to live in a perfect world where nobody commits murder and how that might not really be ideal but it never goes to those places. Spielberg also shits the bed with sci fi in A.I. though this one doesn't have as bad of an ending even though it is predictable. I knew all of the twists before they happened. Some of them I guessed 45 minutes prior and some of them only 10 or so but still this movie is completely over-rated and I think will start to be looked at as dated and underwhelming before too long.
I see people not getting this movie in the comments. The point isn't to view this as a regular movie. It is truly an experience. The goal is to put you in the main character's head. Question his sanity and therefore you start to question everything and everybody just like he does and at the end you feel just like Douglas does. It's a movie that makes you apart of it in a way that I have never felt before. You can criticize how unrealistic a lot of it is but you're missing the point entirely...
Comments 76 - 87 of 87
Movie comment on A Lonely Place to Die
dajmasta94
Terrible. Do not waste your time. This is a B movie that does nothing but bore you with how bland it is.Movie comment on Melinda and Melinda
dajmasta94
The high points of the movie show that Allen will always be able to take themes and material he has worked with countless times before and make them feel fresh. The structure and flow in the middle section are this movies only true struggle but considering the narrative style this story takes on, it's actually quite impressive just how well rounded and satisfying it ends up being when it ends. Woody Allen has a number of films that have been misjudged, misunderstood, and flat out overly criticized throughout the years and this one certainly falls into that category. He has a remarkable talent for making you feel, think, and laugh all while enjoying a story with interesting parallels that act as a vessel for any of the things I just mentioned.Movie comment on Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2
dajmasta94
absolutely terribleMovie comment on Eraserhead
dajmasta94
What I get out of Eraserhead: To me this movie is about the expectations we put on our own lives and how that leads us to believe our lives aren't satisfying. The biggest things that lead me to think this way about the film would be that Henry's child is not what anybody would expect and he is unprepared for that and seeing as how the film opens with what appears to be the creation of (a) life (Lynch style), I believe that Henry's child is meant to represent his life as a whole. On that note I think when Henry cuts the clothe his child is in and discovers that the clothe was actually the only thing keeping it together...What this means is Henry decided to examine his life but when doing so he discovered that ignoring all of the ugliness in his life, it was in a sense protecting him, and now that he undid all of that he stabs his child to put it out of its misery, this represents Henry's urge to end his own life because he sees that he can't put it all back together again and as the last shot is him greeting the lady in the radiator who sings to Henry earlier in the film "In Heaven everything is fine" I believe Henry chooses to kill himself. Another way to look a this would be that the lady in the radiator is just a symbol of hope and that after Henry examines the dark parts of his own life he finds hope for the future. Regardless I think this is all about expectations because the film is riddled with unexpected pieces that are meant to instill all sorts of emotions. In the beginning we expect the elevator to close but it doesn't for a long time, it just holds there (Which is Lynch humor), the chicken bleeds which is not expected and it disturbs us and in an entirely different kind of example the lady across the hall definitely represents some sort of ideal that Henry strives for and when he gets her it again does not turn out as expected. I think there's other ideas explored in other stranger passages but I think the main idea, or at least what I got out of it was that expectations cause our lives to be worse than they are.Movie comment on Casino
dajmasta94
This movie stinks. The use of double voice over is a clear sign that this movie was struggling to find a narrative voice. It is flat out boring and beyond predictable. Scorsese really wrings the last drops out of his crime wash clothe here and holy shit is it a pain to sit through. The first thirty minutes consist of nothing but De Niro and Pesci explaining things to you through narration (an Pesci sucks at narration). I really like Goodfellas but I absolutely think this movie is garbage. One of Scorsese's worst movies.Movie comment on Cape Fear
dajmasta94
One of the best pieces of schlock you'll ever see. For the people who feel only the end is over the top and goofy...May I remind you of the fire works shot where De Niro is spread out in that pose on the wall with a HUGE and I mean RIDICULOUSLY HUGE fireworks display going on right behind him for no real reason. The whole movie is filled with great unintentionally(?) funny moments like this and Scorsese experiments with the camera in ways that simply do not stand the test of time. Don't get me wrong, I love this movie but it is absolutely ridiculous and demands to not be taken seriously.Movie comment on The Babadook
dajmasta94
Heard nothing but good things and had been looking forward to this for a while, sadly though I thought this was downright awful. The idea is very interesting but unfortunately the movie does little more than make me think this idea would have been more effective in a short film. First off this thing looked low budget throughout, the acting on both our leads I thought was laughably bad and I did in fact laugh more than a handful of times. The other big gripe I have with this movie is the pacing, I felt the set up dragged a bit, the middle was rushed, and the end subsequently felt entirely too long and the very end had me rolling my eyes to no end. One last gripe is these characters never feel like anything more than personified grief. There's no substance to them beyond their emotional problems and it doesn't make them likable or relate-able so when shit hits the fan and the obvious connection of what the Babadook is supposed to represent starts to smack you in the face even more it just bored me, and the sound design of the babadook was really cheap and boring. Terrible execution of a good idea.Movie comment on The D Train
dajmasta94
This movie is really fucking weird...Like if just a few plot points early on had been slightly changed and the tone of the movie was more straight up dramatic instead of existing in this place between drama and awkward comedy. It's so dis-servicing to the ideas to never fully commit to how dramatic the material could have been by making really bland, predictable jokes that are also not even fully committed to in their own right. The acting is never as over the top as the joke needs it to be...It's such a weird watch.Movie comment on The Stanford Prison Experiment
dajmasta94
It's a solid film but in terms of the accuracy it's a bit of a stretch. Nowhere near the amount of physical altercations occurred in the real experiment and the movie escalates to a point where it is a little too far fetched for me but overall it is a good watch. Just understand the material is dramatized to the max.Movie comment on Big Eyes
dajmasta94
A terribly bland movie with some beautiful establishing shots that are meant to mirror that of a painting and for what it's worth I did enjoy simply admiring the beauty of these shots for the first 45 minutes but the effect wares out on you and eventually you realize you're watching a movie with no soul. Burton seems to have forgotten how to inject life into stories or portray characters in a realistic and empathetic way. Maybe he just picks crappy scripts to work with or maybe he doesn't really care that much anymore and simply enjoys crafting the look of films. But either way it's incredibly predictable, until the end when it devolves into a laughable thriller for 10 minutes but that twist isn't making this viewing experience more engaging, just further losing the grasp it has on the audience. Amy Adams is always good,but Waltz is actually laughably over the top at times which you could say is his character but it's still too much for me, especially towards the end. Anyways this movie is entirely forgettable minus the pretty images Burton manages to squeeze in here, but like I said that gets old pretty quick. 5/10Movie comment on Minority Report
dajmasta94
This movie is wasted potential. Phillip K. Dick is a genius when it comes to sci fi, but Spielberg is not and this brings the movie down considerably for me. I absolutely hate the way he does the future. It is so sterile and boring and the way he uses light in them is absolutely atrocious and brings this incredibly cold atmosphere to a project that does not resemble this tone in either story or design. The only interesting thing in this movie comes from Dick and it is never explored. Such an interesting premise and they used it as a backdrop for a predictable and ultimately overly long thriller. This movie should have been exploring themes of what it means to live in a perfect world where nobody commits murder and how that might not really be ideal but it never goes to those places. Spielberg also shits the bed with sci fi in A.I. though this one doesn't have as bad of an ending even though it is predictable. I knew all of the twists before they happened. Some of them I guessed 45 minutes prior and some of them only 10 or so but still this movie is completely over-rated and I think will start to be looked at as dated and underwhelming before too long.Movie comment on The Game
dajmasta94
I see people not getting this movie in the comments. The point isn't to view this as a regular movie. It is truly an experience. The goal is to put you in the main character's head. Question his sanity and therefore you start to question everything and everybody just like he does and at the end you feel just like Douglas does. It's a movie that makes you apart of it in a way that I have never felt before. You can criticize how unrealistic a lot of it is but you're missing the point entirely...Showing items 76 – 87 of 87