Without the performance, this movie would be nothing. It kind of still is a nothing motion picture, but for an intro to Jack, it works as just that. A tedious affair with so much unnecessary fictionalisation – like, what’s the point if it’s a biopic? – needs a bit more going for it than acting showcase material. As for the lad Hoffa, is he really as interesting as the surfeit of films suggest? Not really.
What’s the term, intimate portrait of an empty vessel?
This was quite an amusing watch. A performer of sorts mercilessly taking the piss out of himself through his dummy is disconcerting, but then you’ve also got all these crude sexual innuendos with highly colourful vitriol. I burst out laughing three times.
The voice of the dummy has the most vexing dialect, the concoction sounding like a cross between Frank Nitti from The Untouchables (1987) and a blocked toilet. The protagonist is clearly away with the fairies, but then it is Anthony Hopkins with his hand up a puppet. What do you expect?
I got a bit tired of it after an hour. You can’t be carrying a Johnny Cab midget for 60 minutes. But it’s worth it for the crash zooms, the sledgehammer sound design consisting almost entirely of laser noises, and the spectacle that is Hopkins in a cardigan.
Absolute rubbish. But in a good way. And that’s rare these days.
De Niro can do anything. And long may it continue.
This channel is what the Internet was made for (aside from cat videos and staged pranks). The wealth and detail of info in these vids, the animation, the music, the narrator and his redoubtable voice.
I desperately wished to like this because of William Friedkin and his mostly fabulous work but it wasn’t meant to be. I absolutely hated it.
It starts with this film-within-a-film narrative and the suggestion appears to be that making movies is a sin and invites possession. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
There were extended shots of leaves falling in this for no reason and it bothered me, like the leaves were attempted symbolism. Maybe it was an augury for bad things, like how the writing progressed. The most baffling aspect of this whole escapade was the fact you have a wee child on the verge of death in a cushty Georgetown house of a famous actress and not a single cop, nurse, social worker, doctor ventures into it aside from a chain-smoking Priest and his spiritual benefactor.
The horror? It’s not scary, just nasty. You’re merely viewing sadism, with very boring actors and a story so nonsensical there should be a Muppet waltzing in with a musical number. Lighting was terrible, framing something out of a TV show (a bad one), and the sound mixing was crushingly theatrical, but not backed up by anything visually memorable.
Horror is some poor bloke getting stabbed over an argument about football teams or having to work 37.5 hours a week in a supermarket, not this shite.
Pointless motion picture.
Anyone who thinks it is good needs their head examined.
What a tragedy this Revolution was.
A mentally unhinged cluster of psychopaths managed to hijack a state and proceed to massacre hundreds of millions beyond their own country, putting their own in Gulags. An ideology which doesn’t even acknowledge its own nonsensical dialectic should be looked at. It’s a religion for the worst.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the movie.
I have a lot of time for Warren Beatty. He’s a one-man show with proper acting ability. Quite the handsome lad, I would say.
The film:
I fell asleep around the 15-minute mark. Seemed rubbish. Wikipedia informed me how it ends.
Next.
Now is as good a time as any to watch To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) again. There you go:
Was expecting a lot more from this one considering the thesps involved.
It was so dull and grim, the story better left to the stage than the possibilities of cinema. And it’s not much of a story. I was mostly bored and halfway through could see what was coming.
Last year’s The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) came to mind in its tedium.
Highlight of this is Tom Berenger turning up dressed like Dick Tracy.
Nothing much to add here.
One of the worst movies I have seen in a very long time. Apparently, it’s a ground-breaking allegory.
Lazy writing, boring tropes, shot like a student movie, infuriating stupidity as a concept. Every character a plonker. And overwhelmingly boring.
Hated it after 20 mins. It didn’t help matters that the bloke who Pacino choke-held at the dinner party in Scent of a Woman (1992) stars in it wearing a polo neck.
0/5.
I don’t enjoy ranting about some films but I’m just trying to save others, aye.
You’re welcome.
How can anyone stand there like a muppet and clap away for 20-odd minutes? It’s an act better suited to the applause of a Stalin speech than the respect shown to a movie.
I’ve never understood it and it pisses me off, especially when the film turns out to be nothing but twaddle.
That’s all I have to say on the matter.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 