le_chiffre-1
Joined Sep 2008
Welcome to the new profile
Our updates are still in development. While the previous version of the profile is no longer accessible, we're actively working on improvements, and some of the missing features will be returning soon! Stay tuned for their return. In the meantime, the Ratings Analysis is still available on our iOS and Android apps, found on the profile page. To view your Rating Distribution(s) by Year and Genre, please refer to our new Help guide.
Badges2
To learn how to earn badges, go to the badges help page.
Reviews20
le_chiffre-1's rating
I rented this on video not having previously heard of it or knowing what to expect. After watching it, I'm still not sure what to make of it, as it's not an easy movie to categorize, but it was certainly entertaining.
It boasts an original story, interesting characters, intelligent dialogue, fine actors, beautiful settings, and high production values.
There's bits of black humour sprinkled throughout; kudos to John Malkovich for his performance, as I don't think another actor could've pulled off such subtle humour.
There were a few plot holes near the end and I didn't buy the behaviour of some of the characters (like Trevanny's wife), but it wasn't enough to spoil the movie.
I've been reading that this didn't get a proper theatrical release in the United States. That doesn't surprise me; if Hollywood was to allow anything good to appear on American theatre screens, audiences might start to notice just how rotten most of its productions are.
It boasts an original story, interesting characters, intelligent dialogue, fine actors, beautiful settings, and high production values.
There's bits of black humour sprinkled throughout; kudos to John Malkovich for his performance, as I don't think another actor could've pulled off such subtle humour.
There were a few plot holes near the end and I didn't buy the behaviour of some of the characters (like Trevanny's wife), but it wasn't enough to spoil the movie.
I've been reading that this didn't get a proper theatrical release in the United States. That doesn't surprise me; if Hollywood was to allow anything good to appear on American theatre screens, audiences might start to notice just how rotten most of its productions are.
This had the potential to be a good movie -- the basic premise, about a phoney medium who starts to experience real premonitions, was interesting, the actors were excellent, and the gloomy atmosphere of an economically-depressed rural South came through loud and clear -- but it just didn't go anywhere.
The movie came off like more of a soapbox for the writer's leftist, secular humanist views than anything. For example, there's a scene in which the psychic starts telling an auditorium of blue-collar workers that if only they were to stop believing in God and the afterlife, they could start to build a better world here on earth.
The problem with such propositions is that they don't square with reality. The further we've moved from religion, the baser we've become. Unlike the churchgoing villain of this film, real-life Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was a fan of Richard Dawkins, not of the Bible. Becoming more honest with ourselves and each other by dispensing with our ideals (or, as the writer would probably see it, our hypocrisy) doesn't mean that the world will become a better place. Better a Henry Ford than a Gordon Gekko.
Black Rainbow didn't spend enough time developing its characters to justify the frequently grandiose, overwrought, overly-intellectual dialogue. The story, which with a little more work would've resulted in a first-class supernatural thriller, was given a backseat to the incessant moralizing.
Too bad Lee Ving wasn't cast as the hit man. That role would've fit him like a black glove!
6 out of 10 stars.
The movie came off like more of a soapbox for the writer's leftist, secular humanist views than anything. For example, there's a scene in which the psychic starts telling an auditorium of blue-collar workers that if only they were to stop believing in God and the afterlife, they could start to build a better world here on earth.
The problem with such propositions is that they don't square with reality. The further we've moved from religion, the baser we've become. Unlike the churchgoing villain of this film, real-life Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was a fan of Richard Dawkins, not of the Bible. Becoming more honest with ourselves and each other by dispensing with our ideals (or, as the writer would probably see it, our hypocrisy) doesn't mean that the world will become a better place. Better a Henry Ford than a Gordon Gekko.
Black Rainbow didn't spend enough time developing its characters to justify the frequently grandiose, overwrought, overly-intellectual dialogue. The story, which with a little more work would've resulted in a first-class supernatural thriller, was given a backseat to the incessant moralizing.
Too bad Lee Ving wasn't cast as the hit man. That role would've fit him like a black glove!
6 out of 10 stars.
