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Reviews
Miss Julie (1999)
Not worth most people's time (DVD)
One man, one woman, one room, one night. Depending on your mind set, it either sounds extremely boring or like one heck of a good time. This movie isn't exactly either, and it's definitely not for everyone.
I'm a big fan of period movies. I love a good one and probably like a lot of the bad ones too. But don't make the mistake of going into this movie looking for your typical period piece romance. It's more of a psychological drama about class distinctions and gender expectations. And a strange one at that. I was somehow left with the feeling that I was watching a car wreck in progress. Moderately interesting in one way, but decidedly morbid in another. I felt rather bored, but still compelled to see it through and watch it till the end. Which left me with a slightly disgusted feeling for having bothered.
This movie lacks several somethings that I didn't feel like I could quite put my finger on. It obviously lacks the pageantry of all the expected costume changes of a movie of this genre, but that's not it's only problem.
I felt no chemistry between the hero and heroine and found their relationship basically unbelievable. I could find no reason to believe that she would be attracted to such an obnoxious person for even a moment.
Can you say artsy-fartsy filming? Okay, so there were a few moments, like the use of the split screen for one scene and the use of a distorted mirror that were interesting. But that awful shaky camera style is distracting, annoying, and totally inappropriate for the material.
Although the setting of the scenes in the movie are supposedly in Sweden, the actors all talk with English accents. I found this to be rather distracting as it kept bringing me out of the time frame and setting of the movie.
Picture quality: This is not a great transfer for a DVD. In some places it looks rather like a movie taken from old film stock and not cleaned up instead of a film made as recently as 1999.
Sound quality: There are no English subtitles on this DVD (what is MGMs problem with that?!) and boy, does it need it in some places. The accents are only a tiny concern but the recording of the sound in general is awful in some places. And I'm not just talking about the jarring music itself. The volume had to be turned up to hear what the actors were saying but turned down to hear yourself think when the music came on. I ended up leaving the TV speaker on while also using my sound system and just muting the latter whenever the music came on.
I gave it a 5/10 because the actors did a good job with what they were given. But all and all, I think a person's time would be better spent watching something else.
Virtual Nightmare (2000)
My reality is better than your reality...
I liked this movie. I'll even admit that I watched it twice back to back just to take it all in. There's no top Hollywood named stars, no big explosions, no over the top special effects, just a neat little story line that keeps a person interested, and maybe even guessing a little bit.
I enjoyed how they mixed the flavor of the 1950s with the technology of the 2000s. The underlying message seeming to be that that's how people in the future would create their own reality if they could. Car enthusiasts will love their concept of car buying. I don't want to explain too much about the movie's plot line in fear of taking some of the fun of discovery out of it. Suffice to say, if you like the idea of the possibilities of virtual reality, the wackiness of the 1950's stereotypes, and your sci-fi lite, give this movie a try.
Last note. There were a few plot holes in my opinion but nothing major, and nothing I couldn't come up with an explanation for on my own. My only real complaint is that I had to watch this movie on a tape of commercial television because it doesn't appear to be available on DVD. I'd buy a copy if it were. It's a keeper.
The Lady and the Highwayman (1988)
Leave this Lady on the Highway
This movie was one huge disappointment from beginning to end.
Firstly, I bought the DVD. Big mistake. The transfer was by far the worst I've ever seen and I've watched hundreds of DVDs. It actually looked worse than what I can get when taping something off of regular network television using the EP setting on my VCR. Not only was the whole thing blurry beyond belief, several scenes shake like crazy and through the middle of many of the scenes there were video tracking lines like you'd see on a over used low grade VHS tape. Which is what this transfer was probably taken from. The low list price might have prepared me for the lack of quality of the menu, but for it to be of a better image quality than the movie itself was a bit of a surprise.
Secondly, the movie itself was awful. I love a good period piece movie and I really wanted to like this one despite my misgivings as to where it got it's plot line (although I like an occasional historical romance book, I'm not a fan of Cartland). But there was just nothing to like here. The story was ridiculous, the dialog was atrocious and the acting was just plain bad. Something that I'm at a loss to explain with all the known talent that was in this movie. I'm sure I can't imagine what the director must have been doing to get such a lousy end product.
At first I wanted to give this movie/DVD zero stars, but since I could only go as low as one star I did manage to find one good thing to justify that star. The costumes were wonderful.
Fair warning: If you're thinking about seeing this movie solely because you're a fan of Hugh Grant, you can forget it. He barely strings 10 words together in two scenes and two words together in 10 other scenes. He's just not the major character in this movie that he's made out to be by the cover of the DVD.