Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Screenplay by Giuseppe and Bernardo Bertolucci, and Clare Peploe
Photography by Vittorio Storaro

Main Cast: Jill Clayburgh, Matthew Barry

A moody teenager's father dies, and he goes off to live in Italy with his opera singing mum, where he gets into drugs and nearly has sex with her.

At least I THINK that was the story. At about the two hour mark this got the fast forward treatment. I obviously missed the point, because they say that Bertolucci is great, but for me this was a terrible bore, despite the synopsis. And the characters are phonier than in an afternoon family-crisis-of-the-week TV movie. And the acting is absurdly method and alienating.

A good solid ***/****

I am amazed by this movie. Everything is brilliant: the writing, acting, cinemetography, the score, etc. It's been described as a loose adaptation of King Lear. The tragedy of an old king who has been at war all his life and only now decides to make peace and split the ownership of the country to his sons (however, his first son has full authority and the third is banished because he finds fault in the king's wishes). His sons thirst for power and send the king lower down the hierarchy until he too is banished and wanders the barren land of the kingdom while his sons war for more power and land. It's sad that this is in limited release, it's a supurb movie that should be seen in more theatres.

It aired here on Foxtel's channel Arena on friday night, part of their Graveyard Shift segment, where they show heaps of old horror and science fiction films.

I must say, from what I've watched so far, it's hilariously over acted and great fun to watch. And it was shown in widescreen too!

I really enjoyed the movie, and the ending was very true to original Flash Gordon serials back in the 40's or whenever they were.

Brian Blessed as usual was the most over the top actor, although Topol as Zarkov was believably bad in places. Max Van Sydow made a great Ming.

Of course, being a big Queen fan, you can just hear the lines used in their song used as the main theme.

Flash Gordon is an awesome movie! You neglected to mention the worst actor to hit the big screen: Timothy Dalton AKA James Bond, who played Prince Baron, who is also the lover of Ming's daughter (hubba, hubba)

Oh yeah. The widescreen version is also available on DVD if you want it for keeps.

Watched MEET THE PARENTS. Perhaps my humor button was turned
to off, but I barely cracked a smile. I didn’t find Stiller’s victimization and
shame at the hands of DeNiro particularly funny. I found it pathetic.

NP Heavy Metal, Bernstein

I thought it was...sort of quite good! Maybe a real actress instead of Jennifer Lopez would have been a better idea for the lead, because her presence only trivialized what was dangerously close at times to being a pop video without pop music.

But that very pop video look was definitely striking, and even audacious for mainstream Hollywood when it came to the scarier scenes.

I'd read a bit about Howard Shore's score before I saw the film, and though it didn't seem quite as innovative as I was led to believe, it was undoubtedly effective.

Interesting film. Kinda slow in pacing in parts, especially the nice long 1 hour battle to take the hill! I found it had more of an impact than SAVING PRIVATE RYAN had on me and a GREAT score by Hans Zimmer (which I do own the release of).

Some marvellous cinematorgraphy really brought out the locations used for filming. The voice overs were kind of strange to understand at times as they were too quiet (even through a really good stereo system turned up quite loud).

I unintentionally laughed when Woody Harrelson's blew his backside off with the grenade. The scene when they took the Japanese base with only music and quiet sound effects really was the highlight of the film, just seeing how skinny they were.

I will be watching it again, as I taped it, as a friend is coming around on the weekend to watch it, so I may be able to pick up some more from it. Definately requires several viewings.

Directed by William Friedkin
Screenplay by William Peter Blatty, from his novel
Photography by Owen Roizman
Music by Jack Nitzsche and others
Main Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow, Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb

A twelve year old is possessed by the devil.

American Psycho (USA 2000)

Directed by Mary Harron
Screenplay by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner, from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis
Photography by Andrzej Sekula
Music by John Cale
Main Cast: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Chloe Sevigny

Terrible vacuous yuppie kills people, maybe.

I must admit that I know nothing about the original novel, but as a film this is richly detailed, multi layered, shocking, disconcerting, evil and wickedly funny.

Dissertations will be written about this film, and if not, it will at least provoke discussions. John Cale's generally fine score seems to nod in the direction of Herrmann's Psycho, and with the macabre humour of the film and a protagonist called nearly Bates, well...

Directed by Roger Corman
Screenplay by Robert Towne, from the story by Edgar Allan Poe
Photography by Arthur Grant
Music by Kenneth V. Jones

Main Cast: Vincent Price, Elizabeth Shepherd, John Westbrook

Verden Fell is obsessed by the memory of his dead wife, and getting a new one doesn't help matters.

Absolutely marvelous Corman/Price/Poe film, the last in the series, and one of the few made in England, which gives it an entirely different look from the earlier ones. Tomb Of Ligeia really is a masterpiece, a bizarre, thematically rich gem of a movie, distinguished by a splendidly interesting script from Robert Towne (Chinatown), and fine performances from Price and the tremendous Elizabeth Shepherd.

Kenneth V. Jones provided a score which is nearly as good as the Les Baxter or Ronald Stein ones, and I hope Percepto Records get around to putting it out.