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Once Were Warriors

starring: Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison, Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, Julian Arahanga, Taungaroa Emile
directed by: Lee Tamahori

March 18, 1997
The best word to describe this film is..... Powerful. This film makes "Menace to Society" look benevolent in comparison.

"Once Were Warriors" is a film that you are instantly bound to watch, simply because it presents a world that most people are not familiar with. I believe most Americans (me included) and others around the world have heard of the Maori - the native peoples of New Zealand. But how many can say that they have an idea of what kind of lives these people lead or what the modern day culture looks like. As far as I know, Lee Tamahori is one of the first directors to show us this culture, which many Americans will instantly compare with south central L.A. gang life and the decay of Native American reservation life. ... Read More:

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Virus

starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Joanna Pacula, Marshall Bell
directed by: John Bruno


in my opinion,this movie was horrible.wow,what a mess.bad acting,bad
special effects,dumb plot.this one has it all.none of the actors seemed
to want to be there.i can't believe i sat through this thing.i guess i
was hoping it would improve.but it didn't.it'.definitely one of the
worst movies i have seen in in a long time.if you like a movie with
good acting,good special effects and a good plot-look elsewhere.i give
Virus 1/5 though it deserves much less.

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The Piano

starring: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Kerry Walker
directed by: Jane Campion


This is the first film I have seen with Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel. They both gave good performances, and the movie itself was strange but likeable. Anna Pacquin and Sam Neil also gave great performances. The movie did have a lot of nudity that was really un-neccesary. The cinematography was good and the setting was a cool, dark, but beautiful place. The film was very different and really surprised me, like most films do. I recommend this for romantic buffs, and people who love to watch great performances.

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Two Rode Together

starring: James Stewart, Richard Widmark, Shirley Jones, Linda Cristal, Andy Devine
directed by: John Ford

June 30, 1993
It may seem crazy to disagree with a director's own assessment of a film but I like John Ford's "Two Rode Together" a great deal. Ford was in his mid-sixties and slipping when he made this film and some of the plot inconsistencies seem to have escaped him entirely. But the interplay between Stewart and Widmark is wonderful; this was the last great performance of Stewart's career, the best American actor who ever stepped in front of a camera. Francois Truffaut reportedly was influenced by their work when he put together his film "Jules and Jim." I also like the flat-out frankness in dealing with the Indian captive problem on the frontier, which was no little dilema at the time.

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Desperate Remedies

starring: Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Kevin Smith (II), Lisa Chappell, Cliff Curtis, Michael Hurst
directed by: Peter Wells, Stewart Main

January 29, 2002
This movie is nothing I expected. Beautiful, sensual, enchanting with the feel of a fairy tale. This is no movie because it seems like a dream. You also see Kevin Smith in all his "glory". It is a shame he died a couple months ago in a tragic accident. ....
I totally recommend this movie for the dreamers out there.

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Taras Bulba

starring: Tony Curtis, Yul Brynner, Sam Wanamaker, Brad Dexter, Guy Rolfe
directed by: J. Lee Thompson

September 01, 1998
Taras Bulba could have been a very good film - possibly even a great one. But Hollywood values killed any chance of that. Instead, we have a reasonably enjoyable mess of a movie with two outstanding ingredients that rise above the rest - Franz Waxman's rousingly inventive music and a suitably over the top performance by Yul Brynner. As the title character, Brynner looks every inch a Cossack - swaggering and posing like a macho peacock, delivering his lines with that growling accent, and wearing his costumes as though he had lived in them all his life. Brynner was a hugely undervalued actor - a larger than life performer whose presence saved many a film. But the odds were really against him here.

Instead of focusing on Brynner, the film makes Tony Curtis, ... Read More:

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Fuller Brush Man

starring: Red Skelton, Janet Blair, Don McGuire, Hillary Brooke, Adele Jergens
directed by: S. Sylvan Simon

January 17, 1995
The Fuller Brush man is a hilarious slapstick comedy about Red Jones, Who just can't seem to keep a steady job. After several failed attempts which all end in comedic disaster, his girlfriend pulls him a plug to sell fuller brushes. The rest is history. Red gets caught up in a murder mystery, chased by police, and locked up in a warehouse, and all he wanted to do was sell fuller brushes. This movie is a gem, though sometimes the dialogue is slightly thin... slapstick, however, with all its grace and beauty, makes up for what the dialogue lacks. I highly recommend it.

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The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid

starring: Cliff Robertson, Robert Duvall, Luke Askew, R.G. Armstrong, Dana Elcar
directed by: Philip Kaufman

March 01, 1992
While not historically accurate, this is the most under-rated westwern I have seen. Robert Duval makes a convincing Jesse James with his evangelical outbursts and psychopathic behavior.Cliff Robertson plays the sly, yet introspective, charming ladies man as Cole Younger. The soundtrack and narrative couldn't be better. This is one very entertaining movie, with Duval and Robertson at their best.

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The Piano

starring: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Kerry Walker
directed by: Jane Campion

April 23, 1996
This is the first film I have seen with Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel. They both gave good performances, and the movie itself was strange but likeable. Anna Pacquin and Sam Neil also gave great performances. The movie did have a lot of nudity that was really un-neccesary. The cinematography was good and the setting was a cool, dark, but beautiful place. The film was very different and really surprised me, like most films do. I recommend this for romantic buffs, and people who love to watch great performances.

Average Rating:

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Rapa Nui

starring: Jason Scott Lee, Esai Morales, Sandrine Holt, Eru Potaka-Dewes, Emilio Tuki Hito
directed by: Kevin Reynolds

September 26, 1995
This movie arouses violent controversy...you either like it or hate it.

I like it.

It mixes faithful ethnographic research with a fairly interesting story (culmonating in an egg-race to beat any other). Alright, the acting is poor and the plot has some tropical-romance cliches, but the film-makers respect the facts of Easter Island's prehistory (as told in books like Aku-Aku) without the need to introduce any white explorers or other people with whom we are supposed to identify.

Nor has any attempt been made to saddle the actors with hokey native accents; they speak English with their own accents - usually New Zealand - and get on with saying whatever they have to say in unadorned fashion. Just the way it would have seemed to us if we had been ... Read More: