User reviews

This was one of the worst movies that I have ever seen! Boring, stupid, inane, overacted, with absurd directing liberties. I am ashamed that the beauteous Isabella Rossellini would stoop so low. The director is spoofing the absurdity of the "thirties" movie genre. But in so doing, he makes fun of the audience (us) for even attending (the movie, not the contest). Suspension of Disbelief is impossible as the audience is bombarded with poor dialog, emoting actors and a ridiculous premise. The only joy that I got was in viewing the stunning Maria de Medeiros. However her character is such a numbskull, she doesn't recognize her husband, nor find it odd that she is sleeping with his brother. Booo!

I would have given it a zero had I the opportunity.

Banal. Pretentious. Absurd. Pointless. Bad beyond belief. I have seen a few stinkers in my time. This tops my list. It's not merely that it's bad. It's not even a case of being so bad that it's good. It's that the people who put this appalling mess to-gether probably thought they were doing something creative. Most distressing of all is that Canadian tax credits helped finance it. Let's see. What was the worst aspect of it? The dreadful writing. The mediocre acting. The pointless(and fuzzy) black and white photography. Avant gard film can be quite intriguing. This is avant GARBAGE! We have such amazing talent in this country for producing AWFUL movies. If we were as bad at cuisine as we are at cinema, the ER's would be filled with ptomaine patients. Canada is a country that has produced many brilliant writers. Why are our filmmakers so dreadful. (Note to IMDb. Please institute a "0" rating. "1" is far too much praise for this flapping, flawed turkey.)

Call me a simple girl from Kansas, but after watching this movie I looked around to see who had spiked my drink with LSD. Yeah, yeah I get it, its a satire, we Americans are assholes, and are suckers for cheap commercialism. And its attempts to make it funny by shooting as if it were a thirties movie is strained. Satires only funny when not everyone can get it. The only thing and I mean the only one thing in this film I liked were the glass legs with beer the inside, definitely visually appealing. Don't waste your time with this movie unless you've got a few buddies and a mind altering drug to go along with it. Good luck to you, and peace out!

I just got home from seeing this film at the Toronto Film Festival. All I can say is "I hope this movie never sees the light of day". As a Canadian I am ashamed that this movie could represent my country abroad. The only possible hope is that they cut it from a nearly two hour movie to fifteen minutes. There were enough jokes and gags at the beginning to maybe salvage this film.

Like one of the Canadian commentators who wrote about this film, I think it presents a valid argument for a "0" (where "0" equals caca) rating. I don't need to restate the "plot" here and I can't put in any spoilers because the whole thing is spoiled.

Maddin thinks that putting Vaseline on a camera lens makes things look retro. Bob Guccione thinks that Vaseline on a camera lens makes naked girls in white stockings look sexy. Maddin thinks that set designs that include a lot of "M" based shapes will make people think of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis." People writing about this film applaud its bow to expressionism. Well, expressionism was better done by the expressionists; the same director who made "Metropolis" spent most of his career making stinkers like "Rancho Notorious," and imitating early cinema "looks" is only interesting for so long. One could only wish it was actually shot on the old nitrate stock so that it could be badly stored.

The actors do what passes as acting, in a sort of an imitation of an imitation of grand guignol. The two female leads have interesting faces, but do nothing that resembles acting. Isabella Rossellini demonstrates one thing: she actually looks sort of like her better-looking mom, and that she chooses vehicles like the tiresome movies made by her dad, which today I find painful to watch.

The DVD contains three shorts that are much more amusing than the film they accompany (especially "Sissy Boy Slap Fest"), and the two "about the film" features have a "look-at-me-I'm-wonderful" air about them, narrated by some idiot who obviously would like to do a one-man "evening with Vincent Price" show in a bathhouse.

Gee: did I like this movie? I was prepared to; I thought the premise was interesting and the thought of Rossellini as a concupiscent double amputee might be funny, but the product ends up looking like something made up by stoned frat boys who think they're really, really, really witty.

Yeah: if you like this movie you probably also think Baz Lurhman is a genius, too. Pass the sedatives, please.

One of the worst films I've ever seen. Nothing lovable about it. Sad, really sad.

I think that this director has a distorted world view and that people who like the film have the same problem.

The flick was part of the Melbourne Film Festival and amongst the 13 programs that I've watched it was sticking out as a 90 minute torture!

At the end of the film the director asks something about happiness. Maybe he knew that happiness is the one thing we need to get back after watching his film.

Fortunately I hadn't paid for the ticket.

Comedy?

Must be a cultural thing.

If I had to describe this, I'd have to say a surreal musical, fantasy-tragedy with weird sexual overtones that obscures all of the mentioned genres as they overlap one another. Harshly.

I had to stop the video in the middle to read the reviews to see if I was missing something.

As close as I can figure, I saw some movies in the 70's by Jodorovsky(Sp), which were as close to this in the "weird" aspect.

I didn't get those either, but maybe I'm not your "artsy-fartsy" type of moviegoer. Or maybe being "high" on anything would help.

My wife and I walked out of this movie 45 minutes before it was over, along with a lot of other people in the theater. This could have been a wonderful film: the characters are delightful and rich, and the story is very creative, and very funny. Unfortunately, all of this got covered up by a director who threw too many gimmicky ideas at the film: shooting the film in grainy, black and white super-8, blurring the borders of the screen, crass sight gags, and layers of sampled sound effects played at a volume that sometimes bordered on the painful.

This film could be really enjoyable if it was re-edited to get rid of all the visual and audio doodads, so that the story could shine through.