Slashdot Mirror

If you already know the movie title and just want to find reviews, seems sites like MRQE are still better.

MRQE

I thought of that, too. Rottentomatoes + MRQE.

1) The Coalition disputes that those rockets had chemical weapons.

2) The UN believes the scrap was being sent out of Iraq both before Saddam was captured and after. This says nothing about any WMD programs. If it was so valuable, why not ship it intact to storage sites instead of scrap yards?

3) Cite a source.

What does Iraq have to do with 9/11?

Almost every review has been negative? Try this link: MRQE

"The last time I agreed with Roeper, I shot myself in the foot to repent my sins."

LOL!

First of all, you can't "win them all", so to speak. Second of all, you pretty much have to rely on consensus.
Here's a couple of sites that can help you make a decision :

Rotten Tomatoes
and
Marquee

a good source for movie reviews

I don't see how divx can really be such a great way to find out about flicks compared to a good review, or even usenet buzz or word of mouth.

Reviews are quick and easy to digest. It's much nicer to rely on somebody's distillation "it was tedious" than to have to experience the tedium for yourself.

Good reviewers either avoid giving spoilers or announce them upfront. Movies as you note are narrative-based in a way that music for example is not. You can try to understand music narratively, but it's not quite the same. In music you're always absorbed in the moment when you're listening, and the passage between moments structures the experience. So you can listen to your favorite Tchaikovsky symphony and each time even though you know it isn't over yet, there is that tension that puts you on the edge of your seat because the structure of the music creates expectations that defy comprehension in narrative terms, and yeah, movies can do that too, and literature, but when they do we acknowledge their stylistic departure into a modality we call musical; they are no longer regarded as plot-driven, or they achieve a level of temporal integration that transcends or runs in parallel to the kind of narrative organization you've hooked into, and yet paradoxically the narrative elements will retain their centrality and become even more accentuated--that's perhaps the fulcrum of cinematic language, where mucical modalities of meaning and time intersect with narrative and push the movie forward--for me anyway previewing a movie would destroy that, so much so that I find the very idea of previewing a movie to be anti-cinema and nonsense. Much better to read another person's five paragraph review.

I sometimes read reviews of porn movies too, which is arguably pointless if you just want to wank off--and who would pay for that privilege?--, but useful if you have some serious kink or cinema fetish or just want to separate the wheat from the chaff.

This wasn't a review at all. It wasn't even a synopsis (a weak synopsis?).

He did look at it from more than one angle, without providing any real information. If you want to read REAL reviews of Solaris, follow these links:

Solaris reviews #1

Solaris reviews #2

Solaris reviews #3

Solaris reviews #4

Solaris reviews #5

This comment is probably too late to be noticed, but more reviews can be found here and here.

Thus far, it's gotten very different reviews.

Roger Ebert ripped it a new asshole, saying that the characters talk "more like lawyers than the heroes of a romantic fantasy."

Other reviews, however, were very positive (FilmThreat.com had a cool review here and here.

If you've got the time, look at the smorgasbord of reviews on www.mrqe.com.

Check out this link [mrqe.com]. mrqe.com posts links to almost every review you can find for a movie on the internet. It is a very good site for getting diverse opinions of a movie.

They post a story about video game junkies but reject a submission about RevolutionOS. Is open source too controversial now? Slashdot is just doing cartoons and video games?

It doesn't seem as though many movie critics are acknowledging this as a "true" film. Whereas the majority of recent theatrical releases have already been reviewed at least 40 to 70 times, the Movie Review Query Engine lists only 14 reviews for Kung Pow.

Roger Ebert hasn't released a review for the movie, either. Oh, and all 14 of the reviews are negative. It appears that everything remotely amusing was included in the trailer.

Katz is, for once, correct. Skip the movie; read James Berardinelli's review instead. It's probably more humorous than the actual film.

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution - (grade: C+) "Maybe Darwin was wrong: this remake shows no sign of evolution."

• Chicago Tribune - "...a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house."

• CNN.com - "...this is one really bad script."

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City) - (3 stars) "...when it's good, it comes close to being great."

• E! Online - (grade: C+) "...offers an eye-appealing world but a truly disappointing story."

• Entertainment Weekly - (grade: C+) "...[features] everything...but imagination."

• L.A. Weekly - "...underwritten..."

• Los Angeles Times - "...over-plotted and under-dramatized..."

• Mr. Showbiz - (rating: 2/5) "...despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation."

• New York Times - "...both a gas and distant, a toy sealed in its unbreakable box."

• People - "The fault lies not in the stars here but in the script."

• Roger Ebert - (2.5 stars) "I expected more."

• Salon - "...stops far too short of being completely seductive."

• San Francisco Chronicle - "...an amazing display of imagination."

• TV Guide - (2.5 out of 5 stars) "...sorely deficient on the story front."

• USA Today - (3 out of 4 stars) "...[the costumes] allow the power of the performer inside the ape gear to break on through."

• Search the Movie Review Query Engine

Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" wants to be all things to all men, and all apes. It's an action picture and a satire of an action picture. It's a comedy and then it gets serious. It's a social satire and then backs away from pushing that angle too far. It even has a weird intra-species romantic triangle in it. And it has a surprise ending that I loved, even though Matt Drudge spoiled it last weekend with a breathless "scoop."

The movie could have been more. It could have been a parable of men and animals, as daring as "Animal Farm." It could have dealt in social commentary with a sting, and satire that hurt. It could have supported, or attacked, the animal rights movement. It could have dealt with the intriguing question of whether a man and a gorilla having sex is open-mindedness, or bestiality (and, if bestiality, in both directions?).

It could have, but it doesn't. It's a cautious movie, earning every letter and numeral of its PG-13 rating. Intellectually, it's science fiction for junior high school boys.

I expected more. I thought Burton would swing for the fence. He plays it too safe, defusing his momentum with little nudges to tell you he knows it's only a movie. The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" was made before irony became an insurance policy. It made jokes, but it took itself seriously. Burton's "Planet" has scenes that defy us to believe them (his hero survives two bumpy crash-landings that look about as realistic as the effects in his "Mars Attacks!"). And it backs away from any kind of risky complexity in its relationships.

The key couple consists of Leo (Mark Wahlberg), who is the human hero, and Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who is the Eleanor Roosevelt of the apes. They're attracted to each other but don't know what to do about it, and the screenplay gives them little help. Leo is also supposed to be linked romantically, I guess, with a curvy blond human named Daena (Estella Warren), but her role has been so abbreviated that basically all she does is follow along looking at Leo either significantly or winsomely, as circumstances warrant. At the end, he doesn't even bid her a proper farewell.

Leo, to be sure, is not one for effusive emotional outbursts. He's played by Wahlberg as a limited and narrow person with little imagination, who never seems very surprised by anything that happens to him--like, oh, to take a random example, crash-landing on a planet where the apes rule the humans. He's a space jockey type, trained in macho self-abnegation, who is great in a crisis but doesn't offer much in the way of conversation. His basic motivation seems to be to get himself off the planet, and to hell with the friends he leaves behind; he's almost surly sometimes as he leads his little band through the wilderness.

The most "human" character in the movie is, in fact, the chimpanzee Ari, who believes all species were created equal, casts her lot with the outcast humans, and tells Leo, "you're sensitive--a welcome quality in a man." Helena Bonham Carter invests this character with warmth, personality and distinctive body language; she has a way of moving that kids itself.

There's also juice in a character named Limbo (Paul Giamatti), a scam artist who has a deal for everyone, and a lot of funny one-liners. That he sounds like a carnival pitch-man should not be held against him.

The major ape characters include the fearsome Gen. Thade (Tim Roth), his strong but occasionally thoughtful gorilla lieutenant Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), and Sen. Sandar (David Warner), who is a parliamentary leader and Ari's father. There's also a cameo for Charlton Heston, as a wise old ape who inevitably introduces a gun into the plot and has a curmudgeonly exit line. Watching the apes is fun all during the movie, while watching the humans usually isn't; the movie works hard to bring the apes to life, but unwisely thinks the humans can take care of themselves.

It's interesting that several different simian species co-exist in the planet's ape society. It may be a little hard to account for that, given the logic of the movie, although I will say no more. One major change between this film and the earlier one is that everyone--apes and humans--speak English. The movie explains why the apes speak English, but fudges on how they learned to speak at all.

The movie is great-looking. Rick Baker's makeup is convincing even in the extreme closeups, and his apes sparkle with personality and presence. The sets and locations give us a proper sense of alien awe, and there's one neat long shot of the ape city-mountain that looks, when you squint a little, like Xanadu from "Citizen Kane." There are lines inviting laughs ("Extremism in the defense of apes is no vice") and others unwisely inviting groans ("If you show me the way out of here--I promise I'll show you something that will change your life forever"). And a priceless moment when Leo wants to stop the squabbling among his fugitive group of men and apes and barks: "Shut up! That goes for all species!"

"Planet of the Apes" is the kind of movie that you enjoy at times, admire at times, even really like at times, but is it necessary? Given how famous and familiar Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film is, Tim Burton had some kind of an obligation to either top it, or sidestep it. Instead, he pays homage. He calls this version a "reimaging," and so it is, but a reinvention might have been better. Burton's work can show a wild and crazed imagination, but here he seems reined in. He's made a film that's respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that's not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

Let's make a tradition of this!

After reading about this funny contest I ran to The Movie Review Query Engine and found one review that did have some good things to say about the movie Battlefield Earth.
I am sure you all want to see what this fine movie critic has to say about this amazing movie, let me show you a hint of what he has to say:
Fun cheese. Despite starting off like a bad Star Trek episode, this film eventually graduates to a higher level with great special effects, some really slick bad-ass aliens, an intriguing premise and a good flow of loud, campy fun.
Yes you can find this and more fun @ http://reviews.imdb.com/Reviews/244/24493
Enjoy..and just be glad that you didn't read all of the reviews listed on MRQE, but some were very funny!

After reading about this funny contest I ran to The Movie Review Query Engine and found one review that did have some good things to say about the movie Battlefield Earth.
I am sure you all want to see what this fine movie critic has to say about this amazing movie, let me show you a hint of what he has to say:
Fun cheese. Despite starting off like a bad Star Trek episode, this film eventually graduates to a higher level with great special effects, some really slick bad-ass aliens, an intriguing premise and a good flow of loud, campy fun.
Yes you can find this and more fun @ http://reviews.imdb.com/Reviews/244/24493
Enjoy..and just be glad that you didn't read all of the reviews listed on MRQE, but some were very funny!