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robertharveylaw
Reviews
Alexander (2004)
What a mess of a movie
This is such a mess of a movie. Oliver Stone has somehow become a respected director (a mystery in itself), but this movie is worse eve than his average piece of natural fertilizer.
He has a cast of competent actors, though there seems to be no good reason for Angelina Jolie to have a Russian (Serbian? Slovakian?) accent. Colin Farrell reveals to the world that Alexander had badly bleached hair with long dark roots. Couldn't they afford a wig?
With a better script (staying closer to the historical record) and a better director, this could have been a decent movie. Instead, it's Oliver Stone's "Alexander."
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
There is little to recommend this movie.
This movie is pretty terrible.
At least Dick Van Dyke has moved past the world's worst British accent that he displayed in "Mary Poppins" to not trying at all. It's quite possible that he was sober during the shooting of this movie.
At just under two and a half hours, this movie is too long by at least an hour. How long do you think a child wants to watch this unfortunate effort?
The first half is mostly tolerable, but the second half reeks of desperation and padding. Scenes that could have been 30 seconds long are five or six minutes.
The best thing in the movie is Sally Ann Howes, who manages to project an innocent sincerity that Van Dyke is not capable of.
Plus I hate the songs.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
John Malkovich ruins this movie
John Malkovich has never been a great actor, albeit much of the time an inexplicably successful actor, but this movie is a new low for him.
He's hammy, sweaty, with an astonishingly bad fake German accent, all during an amateurish performance.
I wish I could watch around him in this movie by imagining a better actor in the role (as I can do with some movies)-- Bert Convy would be an improvement if a Wilson brother or Matthew Broderick is not available -- but he is so many scenes that the mental editing is pointless.
By the way, how does the guy who plays the vampire wipe his butt? Those fingernails!
The Watch (2012)
It would have been much worse with Adam Sandler
It's merely awful, and not the sort of Adam-Sandler horrific that makes you want to scoop out your eyes with a grapefruit spoon.
There's not one serious laugh in the whole thing. But it's sort of painless as movies with Vince Vaughn go -- there are many worse. The usual kicking in the balls jokes, the usual homosexual panic jokes, the usual terror of teen sexuality jokes, African-Americans as not-really- American (or even human) jokes, sexual potency as the measure of masculinity, ability to inseminate a female as the measure of masculinity, and the inexplicable Jonah Hill in a leading role in a Hollywood movie.
All in all, not the worst movie I have ever seen, but thank the gods and doggesses that I had three martinis.
The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)
Creepy and unfunny
This is a creepy and unfunny movie. Marlon Brando is at his hammy worst. Paul Ford barely bothers to make facial expressions. Glenn Ford is game, and Eddie Albert does what he can. But mostly I spent the movie cringing at the horrible script and Brando's repulsive yellow-face performance.
I wonder what this movie looked like back in the 1950's when it was made. It was shortly after the end of World War II. Perhaps it was intended as a way to humanize the Japanese (by having a non-Japanese give a clichéd and hackneyed performance in bad makeup). Maybe this movie wasn't as creepy back then. I'm at a loss as to why anyone would consider it to be tolerable now.