Editorial Review

They don't make 'em like this anymore. Well, John Waters might, if he ever had a big enough budget. A steamy "inside look" at the alternately sleazy and glamorous world of catfighting, backbiting show-biz starlets, this Hollywood hit from the bestselling novel by Jacqueline Susann is a high-gloss camp artifact--a time capsule (or some kind of capsule, anyway)--from the screwy '60s, when a broad was a broad, a bitch was a bitch (whether "her" name was Neely O'Hara or Ted Casablanca), and a "doll" was a prescription drug. These dames of whine and poses obsessed over their bust lines, booze, and barbiturates. The once-shocking and scandalous language and behavior of these Broadway babes has been eclipsed by Read more

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Reviews (172)

AWFUL
This terrible movie has singing!Bad singing, and lots of it!Overacted, trite, and BORING!All those good reviews, I thought it would be campy and cool, but it's NOT!

Valley of the Dolls
I have always enjoyed watching this movie, with so many great stars, some whom are no longer with us; never owned it on video, now I have it on DVD, great price too!! It was worth it.

20th C. Fox, What took you so long?!
You either love the movie or you don't. If you're a VoD lover, the Special Edition 2-disk release is worth every cent. The film is beautifully restored to its "Color by De Luxe" and Panavision widescreen glory. (My VHS tape is on a barge making its way to the Staten Island landfill as I type this). The second disk includes karioke renderings of songs along with several documentaries and featurettes (all listed above). My favorite of these is "Jacqueline Susann and Valley of the Dolls," which has generous film clips depicting the chain-smoking failed-actress-cum-bestselling-author speaking for herself and coming across as, more than anything, a highly committed and indefatigable professional writer (who used a different color of typing paper for each of her six drafts of the manuscript). It's easy to see how this no-nonsense, get-it-done schlockmeister got under skin the procratinating perfectionist and celebrity syncophant Truman Capote. (I was surprised to see no mention of their long-standing public rivalry anywhere among the DVD extras.)
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Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

This film was a touchstone of the late 1960s, when it was seen as an antiwar allegory for a world in which madness seemed to reign. Of course, that would probably be true whenever this movie was shown, wouldn't it? Directed by Philippe de Broca and set during World War I, Read more

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Reviews (42)

'King of Hearts' is King in My Heart
I have been going to the movies for a long, long time...starting in the late 1930's.'King of Hearts' is very near the top of my list of favorites and I was delighted to be able to obtain my very own copy.The premise asks the question, 'Who is Really Crazy? The gentle souls confined to an insane asylum or the warmongers on the battlefield?'Though the actions of the actors is comedic and amusing, this can hardly be defined as a comedy.It causes one to think a great deal about a very serious subject.

MORE URGENT THOUGH LESS POPULAR MESSAGE NOW THAN IN THE SIXTIES
We in the Sixties cheered this film heartily.
A FUN movie
I have learned from previous reviews that the movie has an antiwar message.When I watched the movie, my attention was held by its humor and entertainment.I was introduced to the film by a rental, and decided to buy it to replay when I was looking for a good laugh. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Foreign Film - French    2. Foreign Film [Dub Or Subtitle]    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Alternately fascinating and frustrating--and no doubt deliberately so on both counts--this controversial Read more

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Reviews (180)

Murder Case Turned Eerily Kafkaesque
If the words above could be used to describe another Lynch movie - the much applauded "Lost Highway" (1997) whose plot is inspired in part by Kafka's "Die Verwandlung" and the well-known O.J. Simpson-case - they are as much descriptive of his earlier and less critically acclaimed film "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (1992).
Your Diary: I Always Thought You Knew It Was Me
I saw the movie during Labor Day opening weekend. Even as a loyal fan of the show it somewhat confused me in parts. But throughout the years of watching it on video and DVD it makes a little more sense.
absolutely nightmarish
When her dad tells her, I was sure you knew all along, ...oh my goodness, I tell you it will scare you to death.Sheryl Lee's performance will absolutely break your heart.This film will not let you go. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama    2. Movie    3. Mystery / Suspense / Thriller   

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Reviews (12)

Under the Table
John Huston was 78 when he made Malcolm Lowrey's novel of one man's descent into booze, death and bitterness (south of the border style)into a film.
Is This Supposed To be Entertainment???
This is a thoroughly depressing and bleak movie about a drunken Diplomat in Mexico named Geoffrey , played by Albert Finney. Geoffrey's wife has been unfaithful to him and he uses this an an excuse to staydrunk 24/7. If I was a woman andmarried to a fat "respectable' Dimplomat I would have been unfaithful too. Geoffrey wakes up on the Feast Day of the Day Of The Dead and prays for his wife to come back which she does but he keeps on drinking andreminding her of her infidelity.Geoffrey's wife wants a second chance but all Geoffrey wants is his second bottle of Tequila to drink in the morning. The only message that this movie seems to be sending is that in infidelity in mariage there are no winners, only losers which is why I give this movie 5 stars.

Finney is Tops
Albert Finney's performance in this film is masterful! I have never seen anyone, not even Nicolas Cage in LEAVING LAS VEGAS, capture the wild emotional swings and physical tics of a drunk better than Finney does in this film. John Huston uses the atmosphere of Cuernavaca(where I am currently living) very well too.Anyone interested in great film acting should see this movie. Bravo to all involved, especially Mr Finney. He gives a a truly fantastic, award-worthy performance! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama   

Editorial Review

Gus Van Sant's often-beautiful 1991 film stars River Phoenix as a narcoleptic, Seattle male prostitute and Keanu Reeves as the rich friend who agrees to help him find his mother. After a solid hour or so of the two traveling on this quest through Idaho and Italy, Van Sant throws a wrench into the works by conjuring a gay version of Shakespeare's Read more

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Reviews (94)

I Love You, And You Don't Pay Me.
My Own Private Idaho is Gus Van Sant's 1991 art house motion picture featuring Keanu Reeves and the late River Phoenix; it is an extremely loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I & II. Long before his critically applauded Drugstore Cowboy, Van Sant had wanted to produce My Own Private Idaho, but studios would not even read the script due to its possible debate. However following the success of Van Sant's 1989 Drugstore Cowboy, curiosity was shown towards the project generally because of Van Sant's attachment and his earlier triumph. The filmmaker received a $2.5 million budget from New Line Cinema and even got the two male leads he had anticipated, Reeves and Phoenix. Both of the actors' agents were fiercely adamant against their participation in the picture, but both were ready for the challenge. Like others in the genre, the feature didn't get a suitable release and went mostly unnoticed by mainstream audiences, only recognizing it for its taboo subject matter.
Have A Nice Day
An interesting film that looks at the lives of two street kids and their travels to find a true home and adoration.The cast is wonderful with River Phoenix (Mike) giving a heartbreaking performance as a nomad in search of his mother, and the deep longing for love and acceptance from a slumming rich kid, Scott (Keanu Reeves).The direction is mellow and passive in rich oranges and pastels with shots framed on the subject matter in bare form.The film never bows down to a perfect ending nor does it make victims or violators of the characters.It was a breakthrough art film that has aged well and avoided stereotypes immersing itself in the human characteristics everyone shares.

Phoenix is good, but the script is not.
Look, that part where the hustlers and low-lifes hang around in their abandoned building and quote Shakespeare and jump around making theatrical gestures, that part's just terrible. Especially when the Shakespearean lines are punctuated by profanity, come on, that's just a sign of a bad screenplay. Sure, you can use a seedy setting to illustrate a Shakespearean theme. But actually lifting whole passages just creates an air of artificiality, it forces the symbolism and looks really silly. Some years ago, I knew this guy who really wanted to be a film maker, more than that, he believed in art and wanted to make thoughtful, meaningful art films. But the thing was, he had nothing to write about, so he'd just take bits and pieces from Shakespeare's plays or other far superior stories, and then he'd move them to a modern setting and add lots of trendy pop culture references. That's what this reminds me of, even when the actors caper around and recite the lines, it's like a film student's idea of what Shakespearean acting is like.
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Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

This time-capsule film from 1971 is a perfect example of having one's cake and eating it, too. Written and directed by filmmaker Tom Laughlin--and starring him in the title role--Read more

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Reviews (102)

The Love Generation.. in all its Embarassing Splendor
I have been catching bits and pieces of this film on TV for years, always trying to discover its identity.Finally I was drawn in by the excellent cover of this DVD editon, and the mystery was solved.
Stick it to The Man!
Billy Jack is one of those movies that seems to have absolutely no middle ground with people, i.e., one either hates it or loves it. I fall into the latter category.
The way the world is
As someone who gets disenchanted with liberal self-righteousness and psychosis quite easily, I need a reminder every now and then of why I refuse to embrace the term "conservative" instead.This film serves that purpose for me.
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Subjects:  1. Action / Adventure    2. Feature Film-action/Adventure    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Adapted from the controversial novel by J.G. Ballard, Read more

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Reviews (173)

Sex & Drags and Wreck & Roll
Not to be confused with this years Oscar winning sensation, you can't help but conclude that Crash 2005 must be referencing its older namesake with the opening dialogue... "We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something." Crash 2005 is a blockbuster on the controversial subject of racial tensions in Los Angeles.
Remarkable.
I watch movies at the expense of most life sustaining activity. I'm truly obsessed. And this film is very certainly the worst film I have ever seen in my life. I don't mean it's bad as in "Plan 9 From Outer Space" bad -- it's not so bad it is good. It is just profoundly regrettable. I'm not an academic cinephile, and cannot deconstruct its badness in a discursive discourse on psychomorphological eroticism of the postmodern automobile and its inexorable sequelae of non sequitora and ontological teabaggery.Oh...whoops. Sorry for the SPOILER. Uh...all I can tell you is it just ain't no good.But hey! Watch "Crash" made in 2006(?). Now THAT is a brilliant film. Thanks for reading.-CC

SICK AND TWISTED CRONENBERG!!
THIS IS A SICK AND TWISTED MOVIE! IT IS VERY WEIRD!
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Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure    2. Movie    3. Mystery / Suspense / Thriller   

Editorial Review

When Goldie Hawn recommended Elizabeth Berkley for a small role in Read more

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Reviews (249)

Incredibly Misunderstood and Understated 90's Film
I've always loved over-the-top films, in terms of acting, plot twists & turns, etc.The only problem?I don't know that the movie I just watched and adored was campy until someone else tells me as such.So was the case with "Showgirls", a movie I had heard so much bashing about that I was to the point where I couldn't believe it would be as bad as so many had previously labeled it.The surprise: I was right.
This is great movie
I have seen the movie several times & I love it. It is in my top 15 movies.
Ridiculous
The film itself includes a hysterical commentary by David Schmader called the greatest movie ever made, plus a pop-up trivia track that offers juicy insights such as Elizabeth Berkley's total time in the film spent naked.The rest of the box includes a collection of party games such as pin the pasties on the stripper and a pair of shot glasses and game instructions for various Showgirls-themed drinking games. It's almost as ridiculous as the movie itself.Highly recommended.Showgirls is fun
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Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

You either love Russ Meyer's garishly sexist movies about bodacious babes and priapic men or you find them utterly disgusting. The response to his work is that clear-cut. This film, which features a screenplay by critic Roger Ebert, barely qualifies as a sequel to the film based on Jacqueline Susann's trashy bestseller. Rather, it's a broad, trashy remake on its own terms about what happens to a trio of female rock musicians when they leave the Midwest and head for Hollywood. Sex, drugs, murder--the only thing it doesn't have is cannibalism, the gold standard when it comes to trashy entertainment. Read more

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Reviews (84)

"Oh, the times, they are a-changing..."
I saw this film a year after its release and I thought it was one of the worst films that I had seen in my life. I was puzzled by its blend of rock, sex, comedy, social commentary, and over-the-top violence.It still ranks as providing me with one of the strangest moviegoing experiences that I have ever had.
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls
One of the best movies ever made! Very ahead of it's time!
A Classic
True, this movie may be strange even bad to most, but I found it hard to turn off or turn away from. There are messages and points through out this movie if you let go and take it for what it is. This is one of my favorite movies of all time so maybe I'm Bias. Overall I consider this movie to be what a true cult classic really was and is meant to be. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

A tense psychological thriller, Read more

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Reviews (20)

squirmy psycho thriller with a pair of excellent performances
I saw this at the Seattle Film festival in '89 and thought it was quite cool. The casting of Colin Firth was a coup for the filmmakers; he projects the squirmiest sense of psychosis since Anthony Perkins. There are a series of escalatingly creepy scenes between Firth and his crazy mother. Yikes! The gay subtext between Colin Firth's character and Hart Bochner's is nicely played by both actors. I liked the fact that the film wasn't shot or set in the United States. This is a hard film to classify. Is it a serial killer thriller? sort of. Is it a psycho film like REPULSION or The Tenant? Sort of. It has a lot of layers to it and that is something i liked about Apartment Zero. Worth seeing.

Glued to the Screen
Several years ago I worked at a public library and the library had this film on VHS. I was astounded at how good the movie was as I had never heard of it previously. Over the years I would reccommend it to patrons who would ask if I knew of any interesting movies. Without exception, they would always return and tell me how good the movies was, and ask if I could suggest something similar.
Favorite Movie
I first saw this film at the NuArt in L.A. when it first came out. I had no idea what the movie was about, and maybe that's why I liked it so much. Going in blind, without having heard anything, made the film so much more powerful. For years, I thought about the film and then I rented it again when staying at the Paramount hotel in NY. And the film lived up to my memory. Now, that I own it, I watch this film over and over, and honestly, I'm not sure why. None of my friends like it nearly as much as I do. But there is something about the relationship between the two main characters, as well as the relationships with the people in the building that resonates with me. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Foreign    4. Movie   

Editorial Review

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Reviews (127)

Classic!
This is by far one of John Travolta's best performance yet. This is movie is a good represntation of the pop culture as well as the nightlife in the mid 70s. Love it or hate it, Disco was a not only a part of music history, but it was also a way of life. Many artists and group such as KC & The Sunshine Band, Donna Summer, and The BeeGees(of course!) made thier careers out of disco. Even though it was short, it made history. But Disco was all about having fun on the dance floor.
cool stuff
I enjoy this movie, to see a young character initiate what will hopefully become a lifelong process of growth and development--perhaps by the side of a loving woman who's capable of continualy encouraging and motivating the guy to follow through. To see him reach that critical age and foresight that certain actions, behaviors, and old habits wont take you very far in life and that you really should have a plan in place--sort of like that chinese proverb saying something to the effect that the road of life has in it many forks, and if you dont know what you end destination is you're bound to get lost.
Saturday NoghtFever
John Travolta - is a legend.. No one dances like him. A real classic. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Two cool guys head out on motorcycles in search of... well, America, but they'll settle for sex and drugs and rock & roll. There's plenty of each as Captain America (Peter Fonda) and paranoid Billy (Dennis Hopper) encounter a commune, convert a small-town drunk (Jack Nicholson) to the Grin Reefer, pick up two pretty lilies of the alley, Karen Black and Toni Basil (who hit the pop charts in the '80s--check out "Mickey"), and get shot for having long hair. Nicholson won an Oscar nomination and Best Supporting Actor nods from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle, but his acting was better than they knew: he had to pretend to be straight and gradually get plastered in many, many takes using real weed. Find out the far wilder, funnier story behind the film in the book Read more

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Reviews (130)

guess you have to be stoned...
I don't expect anything more of a movie than to enjoy it and be entertained. I don't seek to psychoanalyze or offer up in-depth critique, it's only a movie. I either enjoy it or I don't. I did NOT enjoy this, and I ride, so I assumed I would like this. I guess you have to ride AND use drugs to appreciate this....

Easy Rider
This is one of those movies that is on the AFI's "Top 100 films of all time" list. In my opinion that list is bogus. Only about a quarter of the films on that list deserve to be there. I don't think Easy Rider is anywhere close to one of the top 100 films of all time. Easy Rider seems fairly pointless. Billy(Dennis Hopper) and Wyatt (Peter Fonda) drive around on their choppers, pick up a hippie, and drive around some more. That sums up the first half of the film. Don't get me wrong, it isn't exactly boring, but it isn't exactly a great story either. To be honest this movie doesn't really have a story.
Unique when new but dull for today's audience
I was 11 years old when this came out. So of course I heard a lot about it but didn't see this movie. So when I had a chance to watch it I decided to see what the fuss was about. Well, considering the times it was made, it was a radical departure from the norm. Nudity, pot smoking and perhaps other no-nos of that period.
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Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Adapted from the controversial novel by J.G. Ballard, Read more

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Reviews (173)

Sex & Drags and Wreck & Roll
Not to be confused with this years Oscar winning sensation, you can't help but conclude that Crash 2005 must be referencing its older namesake with the opening dialogue... "We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something." Crash 2005 is a blockbuster on the controversial subject of racial tensions in Los Angeles.
Remarkable.
I watch movies at the expense of most life sustaining activity. I'm truly obsessed. And this film is very certainly the worst film I have ever seen in my life. I don't mean it's bad as in "Plan 9 From Outer Space" bad -- it's not so bad it is good. It is just profoundly regrettable. I'm not an academic cinephile, and cannot deconstruct its badness in a discursive discourse on psychomorphological eroticism of the postmodern automobile and its inexorable sequelae of non sequitora and ontological teabaggery.Oh...whoops. Sorry for the SPOILER. Uh...all I can tell you is it just ain't no good.But hey! Watch "Crash" made in 2006(?). Now THAT is a brilliant film. Thanks for reading.-CC

SICK AND TWISTED CRONENBERG!!
THIS IS A SICK AND TWISTED MOVIE! IT IS VERY WEIRD!
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Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure    2. Movie    3. Mystery / Suspense / Thriller   

Editorial Review

David Lynch peeks behind the picket fences of small-town America to reveal a corrupt shadow world of malevolence, sadism, and madness. From the opening shots Lynch turns the Technicolor picture postcard images of middle class homes and tree-lined lanes into a dreamy vision on the edge of nightmare. After his father collapses in a preternaturally eerie sequence, college boy Kyle MacLachlan returns home and stumbles across a severed human ear in a vacant lot. With the help of sweetly innocent high school girl (Laura Dern), he turns junior detective and uncovers a frightening yet darkly compelling world of voyeurism and sex. Drawn deeper into the brutal world of drug dealer and blackmailer Frank, played with raving mania by an obscenity-shouting Dennis Hopper in a career-reviving performance, he loses his innocence and his moral bearings when confronted with pure, unexplainable evil. Isabella Rossellini is terrifyingly desperate as Hopper's sexual slave who becomes MacLachlan's illicit lover, and Dean Stockwell purrs through his role as Hopper's oh-so-suave buddy. Lynch strips his surreally mundane sets to a ghostly austerity, which composer Angelo Badalamenti encourages with the smooth, spooky strains of a lush score. Read more

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Reviews (231)

Good for renting but not for collection.
This movie glues you to your seat through out its play time; but only for the first time. Its not for repeated viewing.I bought this movie because i found it in the "top 100 hollywood movies" list. I don't thing i am going to watch it again for another year.The movie is good but its overrated. So rent it and enjoy it and get rid of the Blue Velvet. I also bought this movie because i heard lot about "the weiredest" Dennis hopper, but i think thats his normal state and does what he always do - GOES CRAZY.

Mysteries
Lynch fills out the world of Blue Velvet so lovingly, and with such care and imagination, and attention to detail (and to the odd, essential quirks of life), that, surreal as it is, this world seems wholly authentic to us. Because Lynch is not afraid to "dream' his movies, he fills his world with the kind of "abritrary' touches that make up real life. And his mise en scene here, far from being merely the backdrop to his "plot," is actually central to it (and even takes precedence over it). The one grows organically out of the other, in fact, for, as in all true myths (and in dreams also), the two are inseparable. Because in life, there is no plot, obviously (save that written by God, or Chance), only an endless, infinite and unimaginably intricate unfolding of scenes, acts, events, encounters, gestures, words, sounds, smells. In a word--phenomena, endlessly spilling out and colliding and spinning off and resounding with all the crazy random beauty of pollen in the wind. There may be patterns in such chaos, but if so, they are infinite, varied, and eternally overlapping, interacting. And so the patterns we choose to isolate are simply that: their meanings is merely the meaning we have chosen to impose upon the chaos. For Lynch, the mystery of the world is inseparable from the mystery of us--the mystery of perceiving, which is the greatest mystery of them all. Something is out there, Lynch seems to be saying, because something is making us perceive. It's up to us, then, to seek it out, and even if we know we can never hope to understand it, we can at least try. What else are we here for? The alternative is simply too dull, too dispiriting, to entertain--that's there's nothing out there, nothing hidden or inexplicable, and that what we think is all there is. (The insanity of solipcism is the only thing that's unthinkable in Lynch's world.)To Lynch, the options are plain--either we know it all, and the answers are just what we choose to invent, in which case there's no sense in asking questions at all. Or--we know nothing, and no answers are possible, so all there is for us to do is ask the most exciting, enchanting, impossibly impertinent questions we can dream up. To Lynch, the world is a strange world, not because we do not understand it, but because that's the way it is--it's nothing but strangeness, that's what makes it the world (such stuff as dreams are made of). Since, for Lynch, there is nothing stranger than "normality," so, by the same token, the strange is the only "normal" thing there is. And seeing as we have made the world thus, by perceiving it, interpreting and assembling it, piece by piece, with our own thoughts and senses, then we must be mysteries, too.
An astonishingly conventional film that isn't nearly as subversive as it thinks it is
Let it first be said that everyone who considers themselves a serious student of film should see "Blue Velvet" on principle alone-- this review is intended for people who have seen it, and thus contains SPOILERS.