Reviews by Electrophorus Dragon

Suffering the fate of most Hollywood remakes of Francis Veber scripts, 1985's dismal The Tall Man With One Red Shoe doesn't just change the color scheme from the French original The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe but throws out most of the jokes as well, toning down the already pretty innocuous original for the perceived prejudices of a mainstream American audience who stayed at home in droves anyway. A young Tom Hanks seems all at sea in the barely-defined lead, Lori Singer overdoes the icy professionalism to zombie-like extremes as his leading lady while a capable supporting cast (Jim Belushi, Charles Durning, Edward Herrmann, Carrie Fisher, Tom Noonan, David Ogden Stiers) have too little to do and even less of it close to funny under Stan Dragoti's leaden direction that misses what few comic opportunities remain in Robert Klane's script through lazy staging. Only Dabney Coleman's ruthlessly ambitious CIA bigwig makes much of an impression, and he's just diligently ploughing the well-furrowed field of arrogant institutional SOBs that were his 80s stock-in-trade. Not so much obnoxiously bad, more utterly pointless, it's a film that really seems to have no reason to exist or be watched.

An absolute classic. You really can't describe The 'Burbs, a bit of horror, a bit of suspense, a bit of action, adventure and a huge assortment of comedy glued together with slapstick and dark humour. Altogether, a great film, a great cast and a great script. This film has sadly been forgot but for the few people who actually appreciate this film it remain an all-time great forever. Full marks to the director Joe Dante. Buy this film, its EXCELLENT!!!

7.5

This movie was a critically acclaimed hit and even started a cultural 'Juno effect' where teen preganancies were considered hip for a time. But like most indies-coms (ie 'the little train that could')theyre often overrated.

For me the movie is still very watchable. Its strange how there aren't many movies about teen preganancies out there, especially considering what a common enough and dramatic event it is for people. While its interesting, the quirky indie nature of the film/films in general can work for or against it.

For me, movies with similar humour like this like 'Little Miss Sunshine' and 'Lost in translation' are overrated. If you realy like those moves however, youll enjoy this. In terms of the movie itself Ellen Page is brilliant, while the supporting cast are good (annoying cheerleader friend aside). The story could have been deeper I feel thou.

But what really brings down the movie though is how unrealistic it is. You would think teen pregnancy would be treated in slightly more adult, mature nature, with less chirpy mood instead the characters are transpositions of the same cynical wordly incredible personality (corrected slightly for age, gender, income i suppose).

Juno talks like a 40 year old chainsmoker, her hairdresser stepmother, who keeps an urn in the house tongue bashes a nurse at hospital (a la Juno), her ex-millatary dad seems to take his only 16 yr old daughters pregnancy remarkably well if cynically (a la Juno). Even the proposed adopting father is revealed to be on the same wavelenght as Juno. You could literally imagine a random character from the movie speaking one of Junos lines and it might well work (maybe).

Some of the things that happen in the movie are just plain ridiculous. Juno is best friends with the popular high school cheerleader yet gets pregant with Michael Ceras 'dorky' character and gets shunned in school for being pregnant. The suburban couple are polar opposites its eventually revealed, the guy keps his comic books and music in the basement in boxes away from the controlling, tense career woman, he
amazingly ends up with as wife. 16 year old Juno seems to have more in common with him.

Cera's father character doesnt really get billing as a father per se, more an incidence to the fact, in fact he has no input to the fate of the baby. You would think Juno would hold him accountable far more rather tahn being jealous he took another girl to prom, or he would be more emotionally involved (at least depicted as; maybe in a scene where he could start crying in front of a mirror or something)in the end we arent even certain if his own mother finds out he even fathered a kid. I'm not even sure if he finds out the gender of his baby either. What a social comment on teenage fathers!

That said the movie is fun, its worth watching at least once. Just dont think it will reinvent the wheel or anything. The oscar win for screenplay of all things in the film was unwarranted but Ellen Page deservedly gets recognition, we'll probably be seeing a whole lot more of her in the next decades based on this.

Steve Carrel stars in this modern comedy classic which throws caution to the wind and unravels its arsenal of gags with a big stupid grin all over its face, and director Judd Apatow went on to produce and direct more comedies of its calibre including Knocked Up and Superbad. Carrel stars here as Andy, a lovable dork living in a neat apartment who collects action figures, reads comic books and sings karaoke by himself, one night he lets slip a terrible secret... He's a virgin! His friends (among them, Apatow regular Seth Rogen) then try to get him some sex so he can be put out of this supposed misery. Carrel's geeky charm really makes his character work and although this has a schmucky underbelly to it, this bright comedy vehicle impresses despite being judgemental, overlong and sometime a little big annoying.

Having flicked through one of those '1001 films to watch before you die' books, I set off to find a few 'classics' that had previously passed me by. 'The Graduate' was one of these and I was fairly unimpressed by it.
I found it watchable, and enjoyable in places, but I certainly won't be watching it again. The best bits of the film are its more comic moments, which Hoffman pulls off in a fantastically dead-pan way (while sounding a fair bit like his character in 'Rain Man').
Maybe my viewing pleasure loses something in my not being a child of the 60's, but if a film is a 'classic' it shouldn't matter if the viewer was around in that era or not.
As for mid-life and 20-something crises: I'd take American Beauty over this.
As for a couple of other 'classics' that I unearthed, they included 'Grease' and 'One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest', which I would give 1 and 4 stars, respectively.

I am a long standing Studio Ghibli fan and have enjoyed every film so far, but of them all this is the one I enjoyed the least.

I found it a struggle to watch and at times even found myself bored. I found the pace to be wanting and also felt it to be a very masculine film overall, but this maybe the very reason I did not enjoy it has much has others from Hayao Miyazaki's work which I feel are more balanced in that respect.

I rarely like the dubbed versions, but did find Michael Keatons voice was very well suited to the central character.

The animation, as always with Studio Ghibli, is superb and the flight scenes are quite breathtaking. The story was not lost on me, but I did find myself skipping through bits out of boredom.

Not the best of work from Studio Ghibli, but by no means a terrible piece of animation work. I just didn't enjoy the story as much as others from Studio Ghibli.

As always with Disney-Pixar animations, is a great film that is not just for kids but for adults too. The story is set around a colony of ants and their struggle against the evil Grasshoppers who come back every year and steal their food. There is some wonderful computer animation and the voices are great too.

`Beauty and the Beast' is one of those films that has stood the test of time and it still feels as well made and delightful as when it was first released. Now it is re-released in blu-ray splendour you can relive it's magic again and again.

Belle lives in a French village and loves nothing more than a good book and when the local Casanova Gaston (who is odious and vain) tries to take her hand in marriage she can think of nothing worse. Her father stumbles across a deserted castle inhabited by a gruesome beast, who is really a prince under a spell, and when Belle goes to rescue him she ends up being held prisoner herself. Over time Belle and the beast develop a love for one another and when Gaston comes to kill the beast the story is brought to a head.

Of course there is slightly more to the story than that, but that is the rough outline and gives an idea of what you can expect here. The animation is very well done in this film, as it's Oscar will attest to, and the backgrounds are rendered with a level of detail Disney films have lacked in recent years. The use of light is very good as well, especially in the castle where the shadows and pools of light are very well done.

This has decent enough music and isn't too twee and the voiceover work is also very good. I especially enjoyed Angela Lansbury as the teapot and thought she matched the character perfectly.

This has become a classic in the Disney stable for a reason and if you haven't watched this yet you should be pleased with the story and animation on offer. This has plenty of extras, most of which are aimed at kids, but the commentaries and `making of' featurette are of special interest to adults and give a deeper insight into the film. Overall this is a great package with excellent remastering and is another wonderful film to add to your Disney collection.

Year 2000 saw the suspense thriller MEMENTO starring Guy Pearce, wherein the uniqueness of the script resides in the fact that the plot unfolds from the end and proceeds backwards. FOLLOWING has somewhat of that same flavor, though not so engagingly or cleverly done.
In this film, Jeremy Theobald plays Bill, a young Londoner addicted to following people - not with any malicious intent, but just out of curiosity. After a period of initial confusion for which the viewer might be excused, it becomes apparent that scenes from three timelines are being depicted. There's the present, in which Bill is telling an interviewer (lawyer, psychologist, police official ?) the genesis of his current situation, beginning with his practice of following strangers. There's the relatively distant past, in which Bill is confronted by one of his quarry, Cobb (Alex Haw), a sartorially elegant house burglar, who befriends Bill and includes him on his capers. Finally, the relatively recent past, in which Bill is dating The Blond (Lucy Russell), one of the pair's victims that isn't what she appears to be. The first clue I had that three timelines were running intermixed was Bill's facial appearance: scruffily bearded and unkemptly dressed, well dressed and clean shaven, and the latter plus a bruised face.

The plot twist, when it finally comes, is sufficiently unexpected to raise an eyebrow. However, unlike Pearce's Leonard in MEMENTO, the characters are all so universally unattractive that it was hard to care when the patsy among them took the fall. Also, the director's decision to photograph in black and white added nothing as far as I was concerned; color would have sufficed. Blessedly, the run time is only 70 minutes. Perhaps they were on a shoestring budget.

My advice - rent MEMENTO instead.

Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal is seen as not only a classic piece of cinema but also a landmark in film history. It's a thoughtful and meditative work that intelligently demands alot from it's audience. We join Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow) as he returns home to find his country in the grasp of The Plague. He's a Medieval Knight that is struggling with dispondancy; questioning his faith and the role of God in the aftermath of meeting Death personified. He asks Death for a chance to find meaning in his life before he gets taken. He makes a deal with Death by challenging him to a game of Chess and for as long as he keeps Death at bay through the game, Death spares him.

Despite an interesting idea, fine acting and poignant message, I think the film has dated to the point of decay. I found the film a little slow after the opening 30 minutes and my interest waivered many times, unable to stay connected with the protagonist and his hangers-on.

It's still an important film but could be a difficult watch for some.