This movie should just be called ‘Dwayne Johnson’s latest steroid cycle’.
First hour is ok and has some mildly amusing moments but soon becomes a pretentious grind that nobody can relate to or care about. The hardcore scenes are really annoying to.
Best I can say is it’s not as bad as Dogville. But not much is.
4/10 - being generous
Just shooting and fighting all the way through. No story at all. Boring!
Good but the pace is slightly languid at times.
Think it would have been brilliant in the hands of Park Chan Wook.
In general i like Gasper Noe’s films. I like that he pushes boundaries, and when he does this with film technique he is at his best.
There isn’t much of that here. Instead, it’s his usual BS of sex and drugs. He comes across immature af. All that is boring and i strongly dislike it.
However, the portrayal of love, cheating, obsession, desperation, jealousy… i do like. And thats what kept me going.
Gasper, please be more mature in choosing ur subject matter. Quit the sensationalism and focus on ur story and film technique and u could make some masterpieces.
6/10
Good film.
Steadily paced, assured direction and nice understated performances from ten cast. Sellers’s robotic performance is particularly impressive.
Nothing special visually. The camera is subservient to the story. But that suits it.
Confident and consummate filmmaking all round.
7/10
This sucks.
I like the concept but the screenplay and the direction are awful.
The tone is completely off. Zany sci-fi comedy action. None of the elements are done well. And the humour, especially, falls flat. Lame joke after lame joke.
The fight scenes are unimpressive which isn’t good as there are so many of them. The performances are all annoying and tongue in cheek when they don’t need to be.
Just a long flashy bore.
I suppose the editing at least is up to standard.
3/10
Far from Renoir’s best. Mildly entertaining but not much more. Characters and some of the lines are amusing. But was a little bored in the last 20 minutes or so.
6/10
What was this film trying to say? Don’t let peasants into ur house because they suck?
Ending slightly confused me too.
First half hour was an intriguing set up but then it got boring, only picking up in the final ten mins or so.
5/10
After the unbearable snoozefest that was A Brighter Summer’s Day i was hesitant about watching this. I was fully expecting another dull, bloated film.
How wrong I was. It’s a masterpiece. A quietly devastating work full of pathos.
It reminds me of the Henry David Thoreau quote - ‘the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation’. This is present in every scene.
Visually it’s not the most exciting, opting for a more subtle style. Some nice shots shot through windows where we cant see the characters talking because of the reflection of the city in the glass, giving us a ‘behind closed doors’ feel.
Fully deserving of all the praised heaped upon it.
Recommend it to anyone who has lived enough years to know that life is filled with suffering.
9/10
Watched it only for it’s place in film history.
Don’t like surrealism, especially homoerotic surrealism.
Pretty awful really. Nonsensical and the imagery isn’t that good. Lots of films around this time are far more impressive.
2/10
Kind of like John Woo goes to India.
Great fun, never boring despite 3hr running time.
7/10
Don’t know what to say really.
It’s definitely not funny. Didn’t laugh once.
The coordination etc is impressive but the whole thing does drag on a bit.
Preferred City Light and Gold Rush.
It’s ok but there are way better silent films out there.
Again, another boring ‘masterpiece’ on the Sight and Sound Top 100 list, but not as bad as some of the entries on there (im talking about you 8 1/2, you Jeanne Dielman, you A Brighter Summer’s Day, you Beau Travail, you Andrei Rublev).
The fact that this is on so many people’s lists of top films can be explained by the fact that they are allowing pretentious filmmakers and critics to dictate their opinions.
It’s 3 hours of boring conversations. Nothing cinematic here. It could have been a radio play and it would have had the same effect.
If you are a budding filmmaker, u can skip this one because you won’t learn anything.
The characters mention Murnau at one point. Go watch his films and see what cinema is and can be.
There’s nothing of value here. But for some reason i didn’t hate it as much as i was expecting to.
3/10 - can cross it off my list and will never watch it again.
Not the comedy i was expecting. More amusing than funny.
But it had an a very nice tone and the characterisation of the main players was far more interesting than the average movie about hitmen.
Don’t think i would rewatch it but i enjoyed it for as long as it lasted.
6.5/10
No idea how this is on the Sight and Sound top 100 and seemingly unanimously praised.
This film is basically excrement in celluloid form.
It’s akin to being in a waiting room for 3+ hours.
The characters suck. The story, if you can call it that, is convoluted and all over the place. The visuals and editing are amateurish and so are the performances. And yeah yeah you can say that’s part of the french new wave style and blah blah blah but at the end of the day it’s still crap.
Pretentious as all hell.
As unbearable as 8 1/2, Andrei Rublev, Jeanne Dielman and any other boring ass snoozefest u care to mention.
There’s got to be better ways to spend ur time than watching this…
1/10
Fkn garbage. Amateur hour. Awful.
Get the impression that this film was made by the director for himself and himself only, without any consideration towards the audience.
The story is stupid and one that only a film director would come up with.
Tbh i’d expect this type of indulgence and pretentiousness to come out of the Italian or french new wave. Very reminiscent of the worst of those films. All talk, nothing else.
I mean it carries u along well enough, its just a nothing story. If it was any longer than it is it would become unbearable, no doubt.
Just another so called masterpiece that would be of no interest to anyone outside filmmaking or criticism.
I don’t hate it but i’m sick of mediocre shit being on top 100 lists.
U won’t miss anything if u skip it.
5/10
I like the intensity of this movie. Intensity is what movies need more of.
Good performance from Sandler and assured direction.
The visuals serve the story well but i can’t say the cinematography is a stand out.
Sound design is good with lots of overlapping conversations heightening the intensity throughout.
7/10
Not as good as i was expecting. Slow and not much happens and what does happen seems under-motivated.
The colours are nice but there isn’t much going on in terms of shot composition.
Good music but yeah, not the whole thing is somewhat underwhelming.
5.5/10
One of Godard’s better films. As usual for the french new wave the film plays with structure, editing style etc and is more concerned with creating a feeling than telling a tight story, such as the famous dance scene.
Modern audiences may find a lot of the techniques that call attention to themselves a little intrusive - the voiceover, the minute silence etc. but the film is never boring and was part of the blueprint to show filmmakers that they can, to a certain extent, do what they want and free themselves of convention and still create a good film.
Definitely worth a watch. I consider this one of Godard’s best films, along with Breathless, Alphaville and Le Mepris.
7/10
After not really taking to the other Antonioni works i’d seen (L’avventura, Red Desert, Blow up) I didn’t really fancy watching any more as i found him slow and pretentious. But decided ti give him one more shot ad found this a lot better.
Reminiscent of a low key Hitchcock without the high suspense.
A good script should always he the foundation for a good film and this has one. Visuals are pretty good though there are now outstanding moments, i found the leading lady’s performance to be the outstanding feature of this film, and the clothes she wore.
7/10
Bang average in every respect.
Will forget it by tomorrow.
4.5/10
Well shot, directed and edited but the script leaves a lot to be desired.
Story just isn’t that interesting.
6/10
It’s ok but not as good as chaplin’s later masterpieces - Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times…
The first, or at least the earliest extant, film by an African-American director and very good it is too.
The narrative is fast paced and briskly moves from scene to scene without lingering so long that a modern audience finds it boring as so many silents do.
It’s a fascinating glimpse into a dark time in American history and has some good imagery and intercutting.
The score i saw it with helped a lot too.
I recommend this to anyone interested in film history.
7/10
A surprisingly robust narrative and quicker pace than you might expect from a 1914 film.
Still early days but an interesting forerunner of the silent German masterpieces that would follow it.
Worth a watch.
6/10
Rated it 6 for its place in film history.
Can’t exactly say it’s entertaining. And the cinematography isn’t up to much considering what others were doing in the years immediately prior to this.
It is what it is i guess.
Third Pasolini film i’ve seen and my least favourite so far (others being The Gospel According to St Matthew and Salo).
The new wave films of Italy, France, Czech etc. haven’t aged well. The amateur style may have looked fresh back then but only really looks incompetent now. And the dubbing that Italian films often employed is really annoying.
Can’t say too much about the story as there isn’t really one. The usual boring themes of spirituality/divinity and class that you’d expect from Italia filmmakers at this time (and most other times) are the focus and plot is secondary.
As with what seems the majority of art films, it’s tell not show.
It’s boring. It’s just boring.
5/10
Not up there with the great Korean films of the decade but still very good.
Tight script with a plot that keeps twisting and turning. Solid direction and performances
6.5/10
