Opiniones de carflo

I saw Little Shop of Horrors once on TV when I was in junior high and my girlfriend saw it also. For weeks we made giggling "Feed me! I'm hungry" jokes and we both thought of it as a really bad-funny horror film. I just saw it again and realized we were wrong. It was not a 'really bad-funny horror film; it was a really really good dark comedy. The fact that Corman made it in just 2 days for $27,000 only adds to my amazement as to how good it is. Every character was an eccentric gem, especially Jack Nicolson's masochistic dental patient, better even than Bill Murray's later portrayal of the same character - and that is saying a lot. I especially liked the two cops, Fink & Stoolie with Fink doing an excellent Joe Friday. If you like black comedy - and I do - please give the 1960 version of Little Shop of Horrors a look-see. If you find it even half as funny as I did, you won't be disappointed.

I have seen many movies that are bad: bad script, bad directing, bad special effects. But what I have never seen before is such bad acting. Where did they get these people? Surely, somewhere in world they could have found better actors. The cast from one of the senior plays from a local high school would have been infinitely better. Every line was 'signifcant' and melodramatic especially from the fat Dracula. (Who ever heard of a fat vampire?) Of course, it may have been the director and if it was, he should never be allowed on the set of any production for the rest of his life. But even if it was the director, the actors should be cast out of the Actors Guild for so shamelessly degrading their craft. 'Bad' cannot possibly cover the awfulness of this so called movie.

I am just going to add my voice to the chorus of praise for this movie. It is as near to being perfect as any I have ever seen. I will not say that it is much better than Alien - which is just about near to being perfect also. But I do love all the characters in this movie. I have rarely seen a movie where all the characters were so well developed. Even most serious dramas seldom develops each character so completely. None of these characters are stereotypes even Paul Reiser as Burke, although the slimy company/government man villain is a prerequisite in disaster type movies. I would almost say that my favorite is Michael Beihn as Hicks, just because I like his work & consider him to be underrated. But I also like Lance Henriksen as Bishop, William Hope as Lt. Gorman, Bill Paxton as Hudson, and of course, Jenette Goldstein as Vasquez. I liked all of these characters. I cared about their lives & deaths. The final scene for Gorman & Vasquez still chokes me up after seeing it many times.

I am not ignoring Sigourney Weaver or Carrie Henn. Ripley is the template for the modern action heroine. In the 24 years since Alien, few have been able to measure up to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. Even in Alien 3 & 4, Ripley was still powerful, despite the 3ed rate quality of the movies. As for Carrie Henn as Newt, she was the emotional heart of Aliens. Cameron's ability to develop well rounded characters does not detract from his ability to create great action scenes or to scare the audience out of a several years of growth.

The Badge of Marshal Brennan is a "B" western starring Jim Davis who later gained fame as the Ewing patriarch in Dallas. Davis was an imposing gentleman with a rugged face and a deep commanding voice. He played villains in "A" westerns and heroes in "B" westerns. In The Badge of Marshal Brennan he plays "The Stranger", a man on the run, who comes across a dying marshal. After the marshal dies, he buries the body and takes the badge. At the next town, he is mistaken for the dead marshal. The town had sent for Marshal Brennan because of an epidemic, outlaws and panic. The Stranger sees it as a chance to hide from his pursuers. What he doesn't realize is that by taking on the badge of Marshal Brennan, he takes on the responsibilities of the dead marshal.

It is an excellent movie, one I remember well, even after many years. Davis, as always, give a strong performance as a man who has to look inside himself and finds much more there than he thought. It has mystical overtones that are interesting but do not interfere with its tough "B" western quality.

If it ever comes out on DVD, I would strongly recommend it to any western fan.

In the early 1950's, oil geologists discovered the signs of a giant tsunami, half a kilometer high, that hit a remote bay in Alaska. After research, scientists concluded that the tsunami was created by a landslide in the ocean off the coast. Since then, scientists who study tsunamis have discovered several sites around the world where major under water landslides could create giant or mega tsunamis, kilometers high. This documentary was primarily about the discovery of a large crack in a volcano in the Canary Islands that may split and cause a mega tsunami several kilometers high that would wipe out the east coast of the United States. This tsunami should penetrate at least 12 miles inland and destroy every city from Boston to the Caribbean within the next 1200 years.

Like the killer asteroid and the "big one" in California, this is not a speculation. It will happen, in time.

This is a very scary documentary. It makes you realize how fragile our life on this earth really is. If you enjoy "extreme nature" documentaries, you will probably enjoy Mega Tsunami.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to children, both male and female, unchanged and it mutates at a predictable rate; i. e., the more the genetic mutations in the DNA, the more ancient the origin of the population. Using these facts, some scientists are studying mitochondrial DNA to try to trace back the origins of the human race. Using this method, the scientists have traced the human race to one female in Africa several million years ago. Then they traced the migration patters of her descendants as they spread across the earth.

The Real Eve is a fascinating documentary presenting a new and controversial theory of human evolution. It does what all good documentaries do, it makes you think, and it entertains at the same time. I enjoyed it very very much and anyone interested in human evolution would probably enjoy it also.

The tag line for this excellent documentary was:

"They Didn't Walk with Dinosaurs - They Ate Them!"

Crocodiles are one of the most ancient and unchanged life forms on earth. Crocodiles evolved in the late Triassic, 200 million years ago. Anyone seeing one of these ancient crocs would immediately recognize them as crocs - they are that unchanged.

This documentary is about the discovery of a 40 foot plus fossil of an ancient crocodile, more than large enough to eat many of the dinosaurs that were their contemporaries. Anyone who likes either crocs or dinosaurs would enjoy this National Geographic Special.

I would especially like to recommend it to any parents who have run out of dinosaur documentaries to feed the insatiable appetites of their dino hungry children.

I am relieved to know that other people found The Visitor as confusing as we did. Over the years, whenever my husband and I have had some reason to mention this movie, we always call it "That weird movie with Jesus in a turtleneck." We spent hours afterwards trying to understand the plot; we never got as far as even trying to understand the meaning.

We went to see because it had such a good cast. The previews suggested it had a supernatural theme, which appealed to us. It was a mistake. We should have stayed home and rotated the mattresses.

I can watch really bad movies without a shudder. I even rather like very bad movies. But The Visitor is in a class by itself. It made absolutely no sense - none. I have read that part of the problem is bad editing. I would hope so. I hate to think that so many fine actors would waste their time on this mess as it is.

Many years ago, I saw Panic in the Streets on the late movie and it introduced me to what was to become one of my favorite sub-genres of movies, documentaries and non-fiction books: the pursuit of deadly disease.

Richard Widmark stars as a doctor in the US Public Health Service chasing down a killer (excellently played by Jack Palance) who is carrying pneumonic plague, the deadlier airborne version of bubonic plague. Widmark and Paul Douglas, as a New Orleans cop, have only 48 hours to stop the killer and everyone he meets before the plague becomes epidemic in the crowded, impoverished streets of New Orleans.

Panic in the Streets was directed by Elia Kazan just before he did A Streetcar Named Desire. Although by no means as brilliant as Streetcar or his later On the Waterfront, Panic is an excellent movie on many levels. It works well as a noir thriller, but equally well as a warning of the dangers epidemic disease long before anyone ever heard of ebola, anthrax or west Nile. Kazan himself, thought of Panic as his first "real" movie, despite the fact that he had already made Pinky and Gentleman's Agreement.

I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes Elia Kazan, or noir, or a first class medical thriller.

Everyone trashes this movie, but I thought it was good. I've always enjoyed creature features with large reptiles eating cities and Godzilla does does it very well.

If you want profound and serious, watch something else. If you want a "great" movie, watch something else. But if you want to spend a couple hours watching something FUN with no serious side effects, watch Godzilla. Bring in the kids, load up on popcorn and enjoy.

This is a really, really good movie and I don't understand why no one ever mentions it or why it is never on cable.

It has everything that I love in a movie: good story, great characters well acted, fine comedy and powerful touching drama. Ralph Macchio is a brilliant young guitar student, Eugene Martone, at Julliard (or some other equally good music school) who does not want to play Mozart. He wants to play guitar like his idol, a long dead blues guitar legend. In search of his dreams, he breaks an elderly black blues player out of a prison nursing home.

The two of them go on an odyssey to the Mississippi Delta in quest of memories and dreams. As in any odyssey, they meet a variety of fascinating and/or dangerous characters along the way. Eugene must also overcome the obstacles and tests that all those who quest must face - until it is time to face the ultimate test against the greatest blues guitarist in the Delta.

I enjoy music, but my knowledge is superficial. I probably wouldn't know a good guitar riff from a raft, but even I could recognize awesome guitar work in the final sequence of Crossroads.

So, if you like good movies and good acting and great guitar music, please check out Crossroads. If enough of us spread the word, it may no longer be a forgotten classic.

I have read that James Stewart considered Elwood P. Dowd his most personally significant role. In a career that spanned decades and included such great works at It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, choosing Harvey's friend, Elwood, as his personal favorite says something about rather powerful about Mr. Stewart and Mr. Dowd.

James Stewart was a down to earth, decent man whose personal life was as honorable as the lives of George Bailey and Jefferson Smith - but he admired Elwood P. Dowd, an alcoholic dreamer with an invisible giant white rabbit as his best friend. Not what you would expect of a man who piloted B-17's and led giant raids over Germany in WWII.

Elwood's attraction for us is perhaps what attracted him so much to James Stewart. Elwood is happy with himself and his life and even more importantly, he makes others happy with their lives. That is the great magic of Elwood and Harvey: they make others happy and they bring peace and a measure of contentment to almost everyone who know them.

I have seen another version of Harvey with Art Carney and it was quite good, but lacked the sense of magic that is a benediction in this version of Harvey. In the Carney version, you can see Harvey - he is a giant white rabbit - and seeing Harvey takes much of the magic away. When you watch Jimmy Stewart, you never really know if Harvey is real or not. You know that Elwood thinks he is real and you know that Elwood's family thinks Elwood is crazy. After watching for a while, you don't really care if Harvey is real. Elwood is real and it is his belief in Harvey and what Harvey represents to him that endows him with such sweet and gentle charm. Harvey is his rejection of the harshness and materialism of the world.

Harvey is a charming, magical masterpiece of kindness and goodness that somehow never becomes maudlin. Elwood and Harvey do not feel sorry for themselves and they most certainly do not expect you to feel sorry for them either. If anything, Elwood feels sorry for the rest of the world and he does not understand how everyone can't see as clearly as he does. For in his world, we are all brothers who should love as generously and kindly as Mr. Stewart's Elwood P. Dowd.

I like time travel movies in general and The Final Countdown in particular. I first saw it at the theater when it came out and I have seen it many times since then. It's always as good as the first time.

It is, of course, the tale of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz that goes through a strange storm and emerges on Dec. 6, 1941 a few hundred miles off Hawaii. A modern nuclear aircraft carrier carries as much fire power as the whole Pacific fleet did in 1941. The potential for ending WWII in the Pacific before it even really began was not lost on Kirk Douglas, the captain, and the other men on the Nimitz.

Their ethical and time paradox dilemmas and their meeting with some very startled inhabitants of the 1941 world makes the best time travel movie I have ever seen. But it was also a positive military movie at a time when Vietnam agonizingly fresh in the American mind. It is a tribute to the honor and integrity and professionalism of the men of the United States Navy. As a lover of science fiction it was enjoyable, but as an American still hurting from Vietnam, it was a small step in a healing process that may never end.