Change Your Image
funfun
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Wet Earth and Warm People (1971)
Interesting look back in time at Indonesia
This documentary, available to stream for free on the National Film Board website, is an interesting glimpse at what Indonesia looked like in the early 1970s. The viewer sees Jakarta as it is in the midst of a transition from a becak-(pedicab) based transportation to the the traffic-choked metropolis it has become. The documentary displays some village life, river commerce, and development progress as the government tries to turn the muddy land into a functional, paved country. The documentary also visits two cultural performances. Family planning is discussed multiple times, though it seems to have had little effect, as the population has grown to 250M at the time of this review. Not a groundbreaking documentary in terms of style or content, but all in all, a nice glimpse into a bygone era.
Air: Eating, Sleeping, Waiting and Playing (1999)
How you say? Garbage?
Terrible. After watching an amazing concert DVD, Stop Making Sense, we put this in and were sorely disappointed. The documentary features a combined 10 minutes of music interspersed with interviews with people on the street that I couldn't care less about, answering asinine questions such as what they think of McDonalds. Who CARES?!
The cameraman must have thought it was neat to pan around in circles. He did that a lot. The sound during the few music portions was terrible, and the film cut between songs in the middle of them, with no fadeouts.
I learned nothing of interest of the band, nothing of interest of their fans, and saw very little of the music that supposedly made me care about them in the first place.
A total waste of time, save the MTV music videos tacked on to the special features.
Baraka (1992)
Inspires wanderlust
The film is a moving slideshow of incredible, intricate, beautiful moment in the world. The viewer is shown glimpses of people and creates from all over the world. The world traveler will use the film as a mental checklist of places to go and things to see. There is a message in there, and it doesn't spoil the visuals. The camerawork is spectacular. This film isn't for everyone. Don't expect a story or a plot. Just relax and see the world.
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Incredible
I've heard it said that this is possibly the best concert video ever and I fully agree. The sound is perfectly mixed, the picture is perfectly clear, the sets are clever, and the performance is out of this world.
Every song has its own dances, quirks and sets, and all of the songs have an immense energy that any band is wont to match. Highlights include the searing Crosseyed & Painless and the touching This Must be the Place (with David dancing with a lamp). I could watch it a dozen times. This is an amazing concert from an amazing band. Also worth chekcing out is the feature where David interviews himself. Quintissential David Byrne, the eternal weirdo.
8 Mile (2002)
Not as good as I expected
I have a lot of respect for Eminem's music, and really enjoy some of his material. After all the hype from unlikely mainstream sources that said this movie was legitimately good, I expected to be impressed, but I wasn't.
The music was good, the raps were good, and the sets were great, but the film itself was unimpressive. The plot just plodded along, and the characters never really drew much emotion from me. It was just a pretty bland story, with pretty bland acting. I expected Bunny's mom to be more intense, I expected Bunny to to be more interesting - more like the persona I hear in his music and see in his videos.
Inferno (2002)
Terrible!
I was in a hotel in Bangkok trying to stay awake all night for a morning flight, and trying to focus on packing my bags to end a trip in SE Asia.
This was the only thing on TV, and I needed some noise in the room.
Just plain terrible. I laughed out loud numerous times at the awful acting, predictable and outrageous plot twists, second-rate effects, and threadbare storyline.
Don't waste your time. It hardly served its purpose as a device to keep me awake.
Perpetrators of the Crime (1999)
Not even bad enough to make fun of
As age-old fans of laughing at Tori Spelling, we were looking forward to a poorly-written, poorly-acted film that we could laugh at. True to expectation, it was poorly-written and poorly-acted. However, while her few moments were incredibly terrible, there wasn't much Tori; and the rest of the film dragged on a made-for-TV storyline that wasn't even laughable.
When you see a straight-to-video piece of trash like this, you should be able to walk away with at least a few one-liners to chuckle about. Hardly the case here. Don't waste your time.
Almost Famous (2000)
OK, but not very believable.
I really expected to like this one. I love music from the 70s and the idea of a nobody having a crack at a Rolling Stone article sounded interesting. However, this movie just seemed way too glossy. There was a lot of overacting and generally mediocre acting (Patrick Fugit, the main character; Billy Crudup, the bandmember; and _especially_ the mother and the RS editor). I found none of the characters particularly believable or endearing. The whole film just seemed too fake, too Hollywood.
The soundtrack was great, but several of the songs didn't fit the scene properly, most notably "That's the Way" by Zeppelin, though "America" by Simon & Garfunkel was great. So I wasn't particularly impressed, but it wasn't a terrible movie either - there were a few good lines in there. 6 of 10 stars.