chrisjcollins777

It really teaches respect for animals in a non-preachy way. I liked virtually everything about this movie. It was beautifully shot (gorgeous Antarctic vistas), the acting was solid (including the always reliable Bruce Greenwood), the score wasn't heavy-handed, the DVD commentary was very enlightening, and it was very moving overall. It's a Disney (i.e., "family") film, so the dialog isn't as gritty as it would really be in this situation, but it was refreshing to sit through a movie without wall to wall profanity for a change.

If one thing bugged me slightly, it would be the casting of Moon Bloodgood as an Antarctic pilot. Her performance was fine, but she's extremely drop-dead gorgeous, and it just reeked of typical Hollywood casting (the hero's love interest has to be a gorgeous hottie). Somehow, I doubt that there are tons of delicious babes working at remote research posts in the Antarctic.

This is the best animal film I've ever seen.

I haven't enjoyed many films from Spain, but "Juana La Loca" (curiously translated by the distributors as "Mad Love" instead of the more appropriate "Joan The Mad") now tops my list of Spanish language films. It may not be an accurate portrayal of historical events (it's pretty safe to say many liberties were taken in that regard), but it's still worth seeing. Think of it as a play loosely based on historical persons as opposed to a bio-pic presentation of their lives.

This is a big, handsome costume drama that evokes Renaissance Spain with gusto, although there's a certain movieness to the look of things: almost everyone is abnormally good looking and everyone's clothes are remarkably clean (Philip, Juana's betrothed, sports a physique that smacks of modern day gyms; it's doubtful that a monarch who doesn't lift a finger would be so chiseled). By contrast, "Shakespeare In Love" captured some of the grubbiness of life during the Renaissance.

The soundtrack is also a bit heavy-handed, with music that occasionally gets a bit obvious.

But overall, this movie attacks its subject matter with relish and intellect. Instead of obligatory sword fights and battle sequences, "Juana La Loca" opts for dialogue that oozes with machinations and intrigue, and a pace that keeps things moving along and the viewer interested.

I give it 7 on a scale of 10.

A lot of people have beefs with Full Frontal, but I liked it. It's taken some hard hits from professional film critics, so I wanted to chime in with a positive review.

The main gripe about its "lack of continuity" is, to me, unfounded. The movie in no way purports to be linear storytelling. I see it as something of a cinematic experiment using a vignette format involving several storylines which at times intersect. In a culture whose favorite forms of entertainment are a guy on steroids cocking his eyebrow and talking about smackdowns, and action movies with roman numerals after the title, this film obviously contains too many arrows for some people's quivers to hold. So be it. I respect Mr. Soderbergh and his cast for taking some risks.

Each storyline in the film stands on its own as an interesting tale. The movie isn't so much a straight story as it is a look at our perceptions of reality and an insightful look at human behavior. I don't want to assign it any particular "meaning", however, because I think it can be interpreted on several levels (not the least of which is how the movies warp our perceptions of reality).

All of the acting was superb and the dialogue very naturalistic.

This is one of the most innovative movies you'll ever see. 8 on a scale of 10.