Rating: 
Summary: The best movie of the '90's
Review: If any movie could ever come close to being in the same class as Casablanca, this movie is it. I'll admit this movie is not for everybody, but the finest effort I have seen since Rain Man.
Rating: 
Summary: I've seen better film on teeth
Review: After its dramatic sweep of the Academy Awards, I was finally compelled to see this "masterpiece," after all the Academy couldn't be wrong. Well they were and so is every imbicile that tells you this movie was "riviting" or that it was a beautifully trajic love story. Here's a piece of advice, if you want the viewer to be captured in the couple's forbidden love, first you have to make us care about the characters themselves. A Pauly Shore movie has more dimension. If you want to see a love story worth its salt go rent True Romance or Like Water for Chocolate.
Rating:
Summary: A MODERN EPIC TALE OF LOVE AND WAR!
Review: A third degree burn war victim slowly remembers his past, while the characters around him live the present. This is a love story set in stunning locations like Africa's dessert,and Europe's country side. The story, told in flash backs, is about a man who falls in love with a married woman, and how their relationship develops, against the backdrop of the war. In a couple of scenes, the director took some spatial and realism liberties in order to get the desired effect which was a romantic and tragic scene without the graphic visuals that would have spoiled the moment.(It wouldn't have look too romantic seen him carrying a dried carcass out of the cave). Those who didn't like this movie because of technical flaws, may be didn't like The lost World because they showed Giant redwood trees- only grow in California- in what is suposed to be a tropical island, or that Sarah Harding-the suposed expert- does not get rid of a blood stained shirt, that predictably attracts big t-rex, or the visible cable that pulls a velociraptor out of the shack,and I could go on... The English Patient is a movie for intelligent people, who have the sensibility to understand the symbolism, and emotions delivered by it.The score is amazingly threaded into each scene, and provides the atmosphere and mood that make this a very good film. You,ll enjoy it. (I did enjoyed and bought The Lost World, with flaws and all..we should see each movie in it's own context...)
Rating: 
Summary: a good piece of sciene fiction
Review: quickly: This movie's about the artificial borders civiizations create to "control" people and that people install to insulate themselves. This is what holds together a film others have mislabled episodic, superficial. Every scene in the movie conveys this, from Almassy being shot down for flying over the wrong place to Katherine's inability to enter a men's club. The love story is not amoral, its civilization and order vs. passion and chaos, what most good love stories have been about from Romeo and Juliet to Casablanca. The two "adulterers" die at the end, that would have been good enough for Shakespeare. The corpse does suffer the effects of Rigor Mortis. You can even see the black shadow around it's eyes, with the shoulders the only visible part of it's body during those scenes. Also please remember the flashbacks are from the POV of a man revisiting the great love of his life. A very good movie, nicely shot and slyly SUBVERSIVE. Ignore complaints against "errors" of continuity, of Ishmael not being on the Peqoud when it goes down and yet relating the adventure in Moby Dick(also neither boring nor THE WORT NOVEL EVER WRITTEN). All that sound and fury is just misdirected silliness, soon to be as anachronistic and telling as a Cave of Swimmers in the desert.
Rating:
Summary: A bad piece of science fiction
Review: The intelligence level of the people who love this film is evident by the fact that none of these reviews have pointed out the improbability of Count Goulash surviving third degree burns from before the German invasion of North Africa (1940-41) to the liberation of Italy and V-E day (1945). He would have died of infection and dehydration long before.
Rating:
Summary: The best movie I have ever seen
Review: If you have ever loved someone, you can feel the pain in the ending scenes when he goes back to find her dead body, it blew my mind away... it is a passionate love story that you must watch with your loved one. It is a remarkable story with many underlying threads, all of which come together in the end. I guess that is the definition of a masterpiece. Visually ,it is lyrical; beautiful photographic touches like when they show the lower part of her neck as an abstract piece of art... Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A modern-day classic
Review: The English Patient ranks among the finest pieces of cinematography in modern-day film. The scenery is breathtaking and captures the haunting isolation of desert terrain. The music is as captivating as the storyline because it reaches deep within the viewer's soul recreating the sense of joy, bliss, and anguish that the characters experience within the viewer's heart as well. This is a story of love which exemplifies quite a few of the many forms it can take. The relationship between the nurse and her english patient is touching and the romantic love between the Count and Katherine is passionate, blistering and real. This movie experienced much adversity during its production by an independent film company and it was a welcome surprise to see its recognition as Best Picture at the Oscars two years ago where it is very unusual for an independent film to take the top prize. Personally, I have seen this film over 5 times and will watch again in the future. It is definitely worth owning on DVD in order to experience the optimal conditions for viewing its gorgeous cinematography that is so very rare in movies today.
Rating:
Summary: Great, but flawed movie
Review: This is probably one of my top 2 or 3 favorite romantic movies of all time. Basically for all the things critics and fans describe. But, even without its unique plot device, the movie is essentially a collection of powerful, moving scenes that do not quite add up in power as it should. Rather than being epic, it feels episodic, albeit many of these episodes are great. Rather than being sprawling, it feels long and at times self-conscious, though it's nevertheless grand. Thus, to enjoy the impact of the film, I prefer rewatching certain scenes rather the whole movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Overblown but with great cinematography
Review: This movie is so badly flawed that it defies one's belief it won 'Best Picture' -- oops I almost forgot so did 'Titanic'. It just shows how far Hollywood has succeeded in hijacking the public's taste from what essential elements actually constitutes a moving and credible movie to their perception of what is movie-art. Those of you who came away dewy-eyed after watching this really need to ask: Can we honestly be entertained by suspending our sense of credibility and reasoning by implicitly accepting the director's interpretation of several scenes? The fresh and life-like appearance of the corpse in the desert is one glaring anomaly; add to that in an earlier scene, having firewood lying handily around - in a barren terrain - inside a cave to strike a fire is another; successfully effecting an escape from a train in such an exposed and parched environment. What next - a drinking fountain near by? Some of the saving graces of this movie are the absolutely breathtaking cinematography, giving the desert a real sense of scale and an almost ethereal beauty to its vastness; creating an effective 'atmosphere' and mood with good lighting effects; and restrained, un-melodramatic acting helps give the movie some resonance and depth. However in the end the pace of the film is too slow, flashback scenes become confusing that you get the feeling of being jerked from one storyline to another without warning with the result that the narrative rhythm is erratic and the film seems to loose its coherence and flow. As for the fact that this film won the 'Best Picture' award at the Oscars does not validate it as a good movie. We all know that the Academy Awards committee is made up from the 'movers' and the 'shakers' in Hollywood and the ceremony itself is a celebration of self-praise, self recognition and back-slapping.
Rating:
Summary: Just like the National Geograhic!
Review: A silly, unbelievable story, beautifully photographed. This is the kind of mindless pap that passes for art in America--weird hero commits adultery with sexy heroine, who then dies, but Wonder of Wonders, her body never undergoes rigor mortis or decomposes, so that he can come back weeks later and carry her away. Urppp!!!
|
